Apikorus

Dispassionate modern scholars of the Hebrew Bible recognize that Jesus of Nazareth is referred to as many times therein as is Richard Nixon - namely, zero.

Standard Christian dogma, of course, holds that Jesus is prefigured in the Hebrew Bible, which is redolent of christological significance. The origin of this dogma can be traced to the NT authors themselves, for whom Jesus was a "signified without a signifier". Hence they applied to him every possible signifier in the Hebrew Bible: messiah, Davidic king, paschal sacrifice, "Melchizedek priest" (whatever that means), lamb of God, Immanuel, pele yoez el gibbor aviad sar shalom (wonderful counselor mighty god eternal father prince of peace), suffering servant, "he who they have pierced", son of man, son of God, God himself. The result is an incoherent jumble.

Quite often, examination of the surrounding verses is sufficient to delegitimize any claim of Jesus' prefigurement in the Hebrew Bible. Consider, for example, the famous "prophecy" of the virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14. Now much has been made of the Hebrew word almah, which is sometimes translated as "virgin" but is probably best rendered as "young woman". (In Mishnaic Hebrew an almah is a young woman, and a bethulah is a virgin; biblical Hebrew attests to the corresponding masculine term - elem - which does not connote virginity.) As is well known, the translators of the Septuagint used the Greek word parthenos for almah, and the former does indeed mean virgin. (Alas, the LXX of Isaiah is, notoriously, one of the poorest translations of all the books of the Hebrew Bible, hence the rabbinic recensions of the LXX corrected parthenos to the more appropriate neanis.)

Still, one need only read on a couple of verses to Isaiah 7:15-16 to find far more serious problems for the Christian apologist, for therein we read that the child Immanuel would for a time not know good from evil. While the NT is famously silent on Jesus' childhood and upbringing, it does seem rather inconvenient for the apologist to have Jesus identified with a figure who would for a time not know right from wrong. Of course, the plain sense of Isaiah 7 deals with the Syro-Ephraimite war. (The child Immanuel was to serve as a sign that the threat to Judah would abate, and that Ahaz should not join the Israel-Damascus anti-Assyrian coalition, despite pressure from Pekah and Rezin.)

Beyond exegeting the plain sense of the Hebrew Bible, there is much mischief to be made in applying the same very loosely allusive Christian hermeneutic to proving that Jesus was in fact the enemy of YHWH, and that he was accordingly severely punished for his sins. Deuteronomy 18:20, for example, warns that the false prophet who arrogate's YHWH's authority would meet a swift death. This, it could be argued, fits perfectly with Jesus' aberrant ministry and swift execution.

There's much more to be said on this topic! Most of the following I have ripped off from other sources:

In Revelation 22:16, Jesus boasts, I am the root and the spawn of David, and I am the bright Morning Star. Compare to Isa 14:12: How you are fallen from heaven, Morning Star!

Jesus reputedly boasted on several occasions that he would ascend to heaven (Mat 26:64, John 3:13, 6:22, Luke 18:33). What does Isaiah write in 14:13-15? You said in your heart, `I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit.

According to Mat 27:51, the earth did quake at the moment of Jesus' death. In Ezekiel 32:10 we read, I will make many peoples appalled at you, and their kings shall shudder because of you, when I brandish my sword before them; they shall tremble every moment, every one for his own life, on the day of your downfall.

Then of course there is the fact that Jesus' lineage proceeds by way of the cursed branch of Coniah (see Mat 1 and Jer 22:28-29). Isaiah 14:18-19 states, All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb; but you are cast out, away from your sepulchre, the abominable branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the Pit, like a dead body trodden under foot. Note also how this passage alludes to the fact that Jesus' body was pierced (John 19:34), as well as to the fact that Jesus did not have his own tomb. (The Christian scholar John Dominic Crossan thinks his body was probably eaten by dogs, disturbing as that image may be.) Hence, this is an astonishing triple prophecy!

The circumstances of Jesus' non-burial are also foreseen in Isa 14:20, You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people. May the descendants of evildoer nevermore be named! The destruction of the land as a consequence of corrupt teaching, and the spiritual death that it entailed, also is cited in remarkable detail.

In addition to being prophesied as an image of the wicked King of Babylon, the Hebrew Bible also compares Jesus with Pharaoh. The prophet Ezekiel, in a stunning dual prophecy in chapter 32, establishes the link between the false prophet Jesus and the Egyptian ruler: And I will put your flesh upon the hill, and put into the valley your dead body. I will also water with your flow of blood the land even to the mountains; and the valleys shall be full of you. (Ezek 32:5-6) Recall that Jesus was executed atop the hill of Golgotha. Furthermore, when his body was pierced, a stream of blood and water spewed forth (John 19:34). We thus see how Isaiah and Ezekiel, using the imagery of piercing and flowing blood, established parallels between Jesus of Nazareth, the King of Babylon, and the Pharaoh of Egypt.

There is still more in Ezekiel 32. Regarding Pharaoh/Jesus, Ezekiel writes, And when I shall put you out, I will cover the heavens, and make the stars of heaven dark. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and set darkness upon your land, says Lord God (Ezek 32:7-8). This perfectly prophesies the darkness which followed Jesus' execution: And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the Temple was torn down the middle (Luke 22:44-45).

Ezekiel also compares Jesus with the wicked Prince of Tyre: Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is proud, and you have said, `I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas,' yet you are but a man, and no god, though you consider yourself as wise as a god -- you are indeed wiser than Danel; no secret is hidden from you (Ezek 28:2-3) Furthermore, Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, the most terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor. They shall thrust you down into the Pit, and you shall die the death of the slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say, `I am a god,' in the presence of those who slay you, though you are but a man, and no god, in the hands of those who wound you? (Ezek 28:7-9) Thus, Ezekiel delivers a shattering rebuke to he who would later say, I and my father are one (John 10:30). Indeed, the Torah in Numbers 23:19 states lo ish el - God is not a man! (See also Hosea 11:9) Ezekiel 28 also prophecies Jesus' appearance before Pilate, and his eventual execution at the hands of "strangers" (the Romans).

Incidentally, why do Isaiah's passages about Jesus appear within a larger section which discusses the king of Babylon, and Ezekiel's within rebukes of the Egyptian Pharaoh and the Prince of Tyre? Christian theologians themselves have discussed the concept of typology, in which a figure of significance (whether he be good or evil) is often distantly preceded by an earlier prototype. The original figure is known as the type, and the later, complete fulfillment is known as the antitype. Here we see how the King of Babylon, Prince of Tyre, and Pharaoh of Egypt represent the type, and Jesus the antitype. The convergence of all these prophecies on one individual is nothing short of astonishing!

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Metacrock

Meta =&gt;Hey didn't you know Nixon is in the Bible? But he's not in the OT, he's in Revelation, in chapter 13, and all that about the number. O sorry, that was Reagan. O well they are all alike.


Meat =&gt;Yea of course they did, why shouldn't they? They thought he was the Messiah, it only makes sense to try and coordinate that with scritpures. The only reason that it seems like a Jumble is because you haven't read the Talmud. It's actually pretty coherent. There are different views, since the NT was not produced by one related community, but by seperate community each of which had it's own outlook. So what? That doesn't invalidate it.

Meta =&gt;Not true. First, there is an argument by modern Messianich Rabbis that Matthew was not saying that Isaiah was a pophesy fulfilled in the V. Birth, but that he was making a Midrashic connection, a litterary allusion only. The V. birth is prefigured in Gensis (maybe) 3 where the seed of the woman is discussed. Rabbinical authorities in the Talmud identfy this with a divine source.


Meta =&gt; Not true. First, both terms, alamah and Bethulah were given age connotations in that era. They were not used of sexual state itself. This is seen in tombs of the era where wives are refurred to as Bethulah, even though were married and had children. Secondly, contextually Alamh could imply virgin as a young woman in that context can be a virgin.


MEta =&gt;That is also misleading. 1) the recention you speak of was done only to get away form the LXX because of it's Christian use, it was done in early second century (if you are talking about Aquilla's). Moreover, 2) the DSS show us that a pluriform text existed in the days of the sect at Qumran and that one of these agrees more with the LXX than with the MT, meaning that the LXX has claim to being the better document.


Meta =&gt; That is just a groundless assertion. It's talking about from brith to the age of accountablity. There is no reason to think that Jesus was born with a full dissertation on ethical theory in his head anymore than it would make sense to think that he was born knowing how to speak Hebrew fluently and fully aware of his mission. We can supposse that he went through normal childhood development form age 0 to cognition of the world and speech and so forth.


Meta =&gt;Yes, but 1) Rabbis before Christ identified the child as Messiah and connected the fulfillment to historical figures; 2) Rabbis in the Talmud say speicifically that this is a passage about the Messiah's brith (see Alfred Edersheim Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah).

Meta =&gt; anyone can make a cogent argument for screwing around with interpretations. Every read Derrida?


Meta =&gt;Of course that's so veg it could fit anything. It's no where near as speicific as the fit for Isaiah 53 with Jesus, which even includes "piericing hands and feet" when the Hebrews didn't have crucifiction.


Meta =&gt;Everyone in the ancient near east was the morning star. That term is not to be taken unqiuely for one guy, it was a common way of saying "this guy is really neat" or this woman is really beautiful or whatever.


Meta =&gt;The difference is the early chruch was serious about their hermeneutic. If they were wrong, they were sincerly wrong, anyone can screw with a text.


Meta =&gt;IN Job it says that Satan was among the heavenly hosts, and in the Gospels it says that Jesus was among them. In the Gosples it shows satan tempting Jesus was food and at the last supper he ate food. wow! oooooooooo


Meta =&gt; Gottcha! I aruged for a month on that on CARM with Jewish anti-missionaries until one of them let it slip that they knew alrady that Rabbinical intepritation has said since before the time of Christ that Jahoachin was forgiven. One can also see that in the story itself because the curse says he would never prosper again and at the end of his life he was honored by the King of Bablylon and died comfortably. It is also taken as a sign that he was restored because he had kid in exile and it said he would never have another kid. Also, Zerubabbell is clearly in the line of the Messiah and Rabbis grant that from that book. But he was Joahochin's grandson through the kid born in exile. So clealry the curse was removed and the Rabbis say so.


Meta =&gt;Crosson is an idiot because he also admitts that the empty tomb was part of the Cross Gospel and dates to AD 50, which is only 20 years after the events, plenty of eye witnesses still alive for that. See Koster Ancient Christian Gospels. I don't see the problem with his body being periced that's in keeping with IS 53, but not having his own tomb is also a prophesy I think.


Meta =&gt;That doesn't even apply to the suffering servent! No way it applies to Jesus. Jesus didn't slay his people either. That's a totally nonsequitter.

Meta =&gt;that is a totally fallacious statement. By your own argument the Hebrew Bible doesn't mention Jesus!


Meta =&gt;That's the link!??? Hahahahha o brother! in a thread on Exist God board someone said that Jesus is a coply of mythic heros because they were always killed on hills. He sites Lord Raglan. So if that is the case then we have to expect him to die on a hill, along with everyone else., so it has no meaning and no speicific application to any particular person. IT's true of everyone, its like saying "he will wear clothes and eat food."


MEta =-&gt;Yea in the Mike Night school of Hermenutics! Everytime it says "fire" or "light" or any word that is repeated it must be linked. That is a totally absurd way to argue. Now I know you think that's what Chrsitains were doing, but it's not. The things they pick out are spcirific and improbable the things you are picking out are general and forced into a reading that is set up to twist things to your own devices. The suffering servant and the persona in Ps 22 and the Messiah in Zach 11 are all said to be preiced. That establishes a much stronger precident for the Messiah being preiced. If others are also prierced they are also not being killed for their people and aren't the son of David and arent' from Gallilee and so forth.


Meta =&gt;The problem with that way of doing it is that you are making a 1x1 corrolation between this one thing. x is preiced, y is periced, so that's it. But you aren't taking into account that there is a whole range of things that also have to be in the equasion before any of that can apply. Darkness is a common image. It is associated with God as much as with anyone else. Read about the Hewbrews and Mt. Siani. But the Messiah was to be periced, but it has to be someone from David's line, from the Gallilee and would disappear and then return and would also fit several other things, bron under a bright star in the East and so on. Jesus has all of that in place, and we know that the preicing is specific of the Messiah, or at least the suffering servant. So that is not even to be considered in connection with the King of Babylon who btw did exist in the time of the prophet and that wasn't even a future coming figure who was unkown as was the Messiah. So that's not even a prophesy to look for after the time of the prophet.



Meta =&gt;No he doens't! He's not talking about Jesus and that is obvious!


MEta =&gt;That was about the actual king of tyre. They knew who he was, he was not an unkown person and that is prophesy of latter fulfillment. So there is no reason to assume that it is talking about Jesus. The passages the early chruch chose were known to be Messianich. They are showen the Talmud to be Messianich. They were dealing with Messianich expectations that already existed before Jesus came on the scene.



Meta -&gt;Duh! why did they want a Messiah anyway? Becasue he would diliver them from oppresission as with the Kings afore mentioned. They are in those passages becasue they symbols of hte kind of oppression form which the Messiah will diliver Israel!


Meta =&gt;Yea and you can't even begin to make it fit without reaching for the Tyology. But typology doesn't just mean any loose connection you want to make. There are ways to do it and you obviously don't know them. BTW get the Edersheim book, he shows a list of 450 passages which are said in the Talmud to be about the Messiah, and they cover all the verses the early chruch used. So the Jewish authorities already understood the Messiah to be a guy like Jesus and they already expected all things the Gospel Evangelists were dealing with. they were dealing with known expectations that had arleady been around for some time.


<a href="http://www.geocities.com/metagetics/6.htm" target="_blank">king Messiah Part I</a>


<a href="http://www.geocities.com/metagetics/Messiah2.htm" target="_blank">part II Jesus fulfillment of major Messianic expectations</a>


<a href="http://pub18.ezboard.com/bhavetheologywillargue" target="_blank">Have Theology, Will Argue</a>

Metacrock

Here is what one of the top Qumran scholars has to say about the Qumran view of the Messiah and the early christian view.


Messianic Hopes in theQumran Writings

Florentino Garcia Martinez is professor at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, where he heads the Qumran Institute.

This chapter is reprinted from The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Florentino Garcia Martinez and Julio Trebolle Barrera (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).http://www.kbyu.org/deadsea/book/chapter5/sec3.html

Section 1: "In spite of that, the general lines of the text are clear enough to assure us that in Qumran interpretation, Jacob's blessing of Judah was seen as a promise of the restoration of the davidic monarchy and of the perpetuity of his royal office. And since the future representative of the dynasty is identified not only as the shoot of David, but also explicitly as the "true anointed," there remains no doubt about the "messianic" tone of the text. Unfortunately, the details which the text provides about this "Messiah" are not many." section 5"... However, a recently published text enables us to glimpse an independent development of the hope in the coming of the "priestly Messiah" as an agent of salvation at the end of times.""It is an Aramaic text, one of the copies of the Testament of Levi, recently published by E. Puech,32 which contains interesting parallels to chapter 19 of the Greek Testament of Levi included in the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs. From what can be deduced from the remains preserved, the protagonist of the work (probably the patriarch Levi, although it cannot be completely excluded that it is Jacob speaking to Levi) speaks to his descendants in a series of exhortations. He also relates to them some of the visions which have been revealed to him. In one of them, he tells them of the coming of a mysterious person. Although the text is hopelessly fragmentary it is of special interest since it seems to evoke the figure of a "priestly Messiah." This "Messiah" is described with the features of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, as J. Starcky indicated in his first description of the manuscript.33 The two longest and most important fragments of this new text can be translated as follows: 2.1 4Q541 frag. 9 col. I

1 [. . .] the sons of the generation [. . .] 2 [. . .] his wisdom. And he will atone for all the children of his generation, and he will be sent to all the children of 3 his people. His word is like the word of the heavens, and his teaching, according to the will of God. His eternal sun will shine 4 and his fire will burn in all the ends of the earth; above the darkness his sun will shine. Then, darkness will vanish 5 from the earth, and gloom from the globe. They will utter many words against him, and an abundance of 6 lies; they will fabricate fables against him, and utter every kind of disparagement against him. His generation will change the evil, 7 and [. . .] established in deceit and in violence. The people will go astray in his days and they will be bewildered (DSST, 270).


.... The priestly character of this figure is indicated expressly by his atoning character: "And he will atone for all the children of his generation...."The agreement of the person thus described with the "Messiah-priest" described in chapter 18 of the Greek Testament of Levi is surprising.34 At least it shows us that the presence of this priestly figure in the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs should not simply be ascribed to interpolations or Christian influence. Rather, it is a development which exists already within Judaism. This text also shows us that the portrayal of this "Messiah-priest" with the features of the "Suffering Servant" of Deutero-Isaiah is not an innovation of purely Christian origin either, but the result of previous developments. Our text stresses that although he would be sent "to all the sons of his people," the opposition to this figure, "light of the nations" (Isaiah 42:6) would be great: "They will utter many words against him, and an abundance of lies; they will fabricate fables against him, and utter every kind of disparagement against him" (compare Isaiah 50:6&endash;8; 53:2&endash;10). What is more, according to the editor, it cannot be excluded that the Aramaic text even contained the idea of the violent death of this "Messiah-priest." In other words, this opposition would reach its ultimate outcome as in Isaiah 53. His argument comes from the other fairly extensive fragment of the work, in which possible allusions to a violent death by crucifixion are found. However, to me this interpretation seems problematic. The fragment in question can be translated as follows:

2.2 4Q541 frag. 24 col. II 2 Do not mourn for him [. . .] and do not [. . .] 3 And God will notice the failings [. . .] the uncovered failings [. . .] 4 Examine, ask and know what the dove has asked; do not punish one weakened because of exhaustion and from being uncertain a[ll . . .] 5 do not bring the nail near him. And you will establish for your father a name of joy, and for your brothers you will make a tested foundation rise. 6 You will see it and rejoice in eternal light. And you will not be of the enemy. Blank 7 Blank (DSST, 270).


... Whatever might be the possible allusion to the death of the expected "Messiah-priest," the identification of this figure with the "Servant" of Isaiah seems confirmed by the parallels indicated in fragment 9. In any case, the idea that the eventual death of the "Messiah-priest" could have an atoning role, as Christian tradition attributes to the death of the "Servant," is excluded from our text since the atonement he achieves (frag. 9 II 2) remains in the perspective of the cult.As far as I know, this is the only text which in the preserved sections deals with the priestly "Messiah" alone. However, many other texts refer to this figure when speaking of a two-fold messianism. This is the two-headed messianism in which we are presented with the "davidic or royal Messiah" and the "levitical or priestly Messiah" together. They are called the "Messiahs of Israel and of Aaron" respectively."[Martinez urges scholarly caution as the scrolls are very fragmentary, there is no guarontee they do not contiain references to other Messianich figures as well, and the notion of a curcifiction for the presitly Messiah is doubtful for several reasons, pertaining to the nture of the text--but his overall opinion seems to be that the concept of a Preistly Messiah on the order of the suffering servant is vindicated] Qumran text, 4Q521 Hebrew Scholars Michael Wise and James Tabor wrote an article that appeared in Biblical Archaeology Review (Nov./Dec. 1992) analyzing 4Q521: "Our Qumran text, 4Q521, is, astonishingly, quite close to this Christian concept of the Messiah. Our text speaks not only of a single Messianic figure.but it also describes him in extremely exalted terms, quite like the Christian view of Jesus as a cosmic agent. That there was, in fact, an expectation of a single Messianic figure at Qumran is really not so surprising. A reexamination of the Qumran literature on this subject leads one to question the two Messiah theory. As a matter of fact, only once in any Dead Sea Scroll text is the idea of two Messiahs stated unambiguously.Ibid."There is no doubt that the Qumran community had faith in the ultimate victory of such a Messiah over all evil. However, a closer reading of these texts reveals an additional theme, equally dominant-that of an initial, though temporary, triumph of wicked over righteousness. That is, there was the belief among the Qumran community that the Messiah would suffer initial defeat, but that he would ultimately triumph in the end of days."


That shows pretty clearly that the expectation of at least one part of Judaism were already geared in such a way as to already include the things the early chruch saw in OT as fitting Jesus. It only makes sense that they would work form a list of prior expactations, after all, there had to be some reason why they believed in him in the first place!



<a href="http://www.geocities.com/metagetics/DoxaMessiah.html" target="_blank">Index to my Messiah pages--6 pages</a>


<a href="http://www.geocities.com/metagetics/rabbis_on_is53.htm" target="_blank">Rabbinical expetations and Talmudic statments about Messiah</a>
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Apikorus

Metacrock, ani choshev she'ata lo yodea likro ivrit. Nachon?

Vorkosigan

ROTFL. Meta, will you quit assuming that your partner is less well-read than you! Apikorus is a gentleman and a scholar.

About Nixon....there's a Watergate in the OT somewhere, as I recall.

Michael

Kosh

Care to let us in on the joke? BabelFish
can't handle Hebrew....

Apikorus

Kosh, it means "I think that you don't know how to read Hebrew. Right?"

Metacrock's cut-'n-paste scholarship is rather a parody of true scholarship. (And I don't consider myself a scholar of the Hebrew Bible - only a reasonably capable enthusiast.) Here, in his zeal to respond, he's utterly missed the point. His protestations that many rabbis interpreted certain biblical passages messianically is true but irrelevant. As an apikorus, I don't slavishly follow the rabbis - they had their own agenda, and rabbinic midrash usually strays wildly from the plain sense of the text. (On the other hand, the rabbinic hermeneutic involves more reading in and deformation of the plain sense than the Christian hermeneutic, which is generally allusive (what the rabbis call remez, as opposed to derash). The christological program of connecting everything in the Hebrew Bible to Jesus I find to be artless and unforgivably boring. By contrast, midrash is fascinating and creative. If you're going to subvert the plain sense of the text, you might as well be creative about it.)

So whoop-de-doo, the rabbis also exegeted Isaiah 53 etc. messianically. (Though we know from Origen that as early as the second century CE the rabbis interpreted deutero-Isaiah's eved yhwh as corporate Israel.) Hardly a surprise, since virtually every even vaguely prophetic message in the bible was exploited in order to incentivize faith in a coming redeemer. To any plain sense exegete, however, it is abundantly clear that the prophetic authors were concerned with their own times and with the imminent future. You've got to be a special type of moron to think that proto-Isaiah would get any mileage out of a prophecy of a redeemer who would come in 750 years. Old King Ahaz surely would have found that profoundly comforting! He might have responded with the biblical Hebrew equivalent of shtok ya khatikhat khara v'lekh tizdayen (= "shut up you piece of shit and go fuck yourself").

I find it hilarious and quite telling how Metacrock can protest the Ezekiel 28 parallel I proferred (Jesus = Prince of Tyre) on the grounds that "that was about the actual king (sic) of tyre" (italics mine) while elsewhere defending the patently ludicrous christological reading of proto-Isaiah's Immanuel as Jesus (750 years in the future!). The blade of allusive exegesis cuts both ways, Metacrock! So, you're right - Ezekiel was explicitly referring to the Prince of Tyre. But implicitly he was referring to Jesus (!), and drawing a devastating parallel between the two! It is remarkable and unmistakeable prophecy! Praise God!

Metacrock slavishly regurgitates material from his favorite sources - invariably the tendentious and dated book by Edersheim. (Meta might stop to think why virtually no modern scholars of Jewish messianism of any repute - people like John Collins, Gershom Scholem, Moshe Idel, Raphael Patai - so much as reference Edersheim's work. Actually the paternity is more as follows: Glenn Miller slavishly regurgitates Edersheim, and Metacrock slavishly regurgitates Glenn Miller. Glenn Miller should have stuck to the trombone.) Apparently, though, Metacrock hasn't thought through how this might help his case. Did the rabbis deform the plain sense of the Hebrew Bible in order to impose a messianic framework upon it? Certainly! Do any of these rabbis say that Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah? Certainly not! Rambam apparently had doubts that Christianity was even a monotheistic faith!

At any rate, I am quite independent from the rabbis. So while Jewish sources might say that the curse of Coniah was reversed, I say read the frikkin' Bible: Thus says YHWH: "Write this man (Coniah) down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah." (Jer 22:30). Meta's "gotcha!" presumes that I concur with rabbinic opinion on the status of Coniah. I don't. Incidentally, Zerubavel was not a king! (That surely would have been news to the Persians. Again, read the frikkin' bible.)

Metacrock flails wildly in each attempt to delegitimize the many remarkable parallels I adduced which establish that Jesus was YHWH's enemy and was severely punished for his sins (!)

The one line which most emphatically demonstrates how poorly Metacrock understands my initial post is where he sputters, "that is a totally fallacious statement. By your own argument the Hebrew Bible doesn't mention Jesus!" Well of course it doesn't, Metacrock! Does he seriously think that I actually believe all that stuff about Jesus being equated to the King of Babylon? Sheesh! As I had clearly explained (alas not clearly enough), this was an exercise in mischief - turning the christological hermeneutic on its head by applying the same vague and allusive exegesis in ways that would make Christians squirm. Well, squirm Meta did! In the end, he was reduced to some pathetic assertion of how his "typology" is superior to mine (even though I was not in the least bit serious!). He insists that "there are ways to do it" (i.e. proper "typology") but of course I don't know them. The "correct" way is of course to identify Jesus of Nazareth with every vaguely messianic odor which can be squeezed out of the Hebrew Bible. No doubt Metacrock learned this in seminary - it must be correct! (Er...is this the same seminary which (allegedly) granted him a degree despite his utter illiteracy in biblical Hebrew?) Basically what he is saying is this: your absurd metaphors are wrong, but my absurd metaphors are right. An analogous situation exists with Jewish fundamentalists who, using the bizarre methodology of equidistant letter sequences, find the names of famous rabbis or the "prediction" of Yitzchak Rabin's assassination in the Torah. Of course, with a consonantal language like Hebrew, you can find virtually anything you want using such a ridiculous methodology - no doubt Monica Lewinsky is giving Bill Clinton blowjobs all throughout the Divine Writ, if you just look closely enough. When the messianic lunatics started finding "prophecies" of "Yeshua" using the ELS technique, the original proponents were reduced to the pathetic position of explaining why their analyses were correct, but the messies were terribly wrong. It's exactly the position that poor Metacrock is in here.

It's all crap, Metacrock! The Hebrew Bible is not a magic book. The entire collection was written centuries before Jesus was so much a glint in Joseph's eye! (Well, in the case of Daniel 8-12, about 160 years before.) Your "typology" is every bit the worthless theobabble that my joke is. That yours has a 2000 year pedigree, or that it is taught at such hallowed institutions as Buford Fragg's Bible School and Auto Parts Distributorship (or even at HDS, for that matter) doth not make it right!

Metacrock has fallen and I am not sure he can get up.

I would invite others to join in the mischief and add to my list of evil Jesus parallels!

(I apologize if I have appeared less than gentlemanly in this post, especially after Michael so generously identified me as a gentleman. I become somewhat animated, though, when a poseur like Metacrock, who off the top of his head doesn't know whether Beitzah or Bubbe Meise is the name of a Talmudic tractate, who wouldn't know enough Aramaic to find a bathroom in Susa, and who can't so much as read the comics in Yediot Aharonot, presumes to wax scholarly on Mishnaic Hebrew philology.)

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Postscript: Meta's claim that the rabbinic recensions tendentiously revised the LXX of Isaiah 7:14 is utterly baseless. From what I recall (I shall check tonight) all three major rabbinic recensions - Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion - correct parthenos to neanis in this verse. The goal of these recensions was to bring the Greek of the LXX, which was witness to a Hebrew exemplar in the Alexandrian tradition, more into line with the proto-rabbinic text. There are vast differences between the LXX and the MT, and it is foolish to assert that the goal of these recensions was to delegitimize Christian readings of the Hebrew scriptures. Another way in which Metacrock betrays his ignorance of basic text criticism is in his assertion that the LXX is superior to the MT. It certainly is true, as I have stated on these fora many times, that the text of the Hebrew Bible was pluriform during the Greek and Roman periods. (The consonantal MT seems to have stabilized by the time of bar Kokhba, ca. 135 CE, as adduced from the Wadi Muraba'at texts.) Indeed, many modern commentators will correct the MT to the LXX, particularly in books where the MT exhibits macular degeneration (see e.g. McCarter's Anchor Bible Commentaries on 1-2 Samuel, where the MT must be corrected fairly often; Samuel is a notoriously corrupt text within the MT). However it is also true that the bulk of the biblical manuscripts from Qumran - some 60% - are in the proto-rabbinic family. (Of course, some major scholars, such as Emmanuel Tov, do not fully subscribe to F. M. Cross's theory of local text types.) Furthermore, Metacrock apparently perceives of the LXX as a unit, rather than as the collection that it truly is. Some books within the LXX were translated quite well - Leviticus, for example. But others were translated from the Hebrew rather poorly, and Isaiah is the parade example of a poor Greek translation. (I defer to the expertise of Frank Moore Cross and other scholars for their evaluation of the Koine Greek. Otto Eissfeldt's famous one-liner on the LXX of Isaiah said that it "is of little use".) Of course, a poor translation is one thing and being witness to a different exemplar quite another, but the scholars seem to understand all this quite well.

Executive summary of postscript: Metacrock is wrong about the nature of the rabbinic recensions. Metacrock is wrong about what Qumran tells us about the LXX. Metacrock is wrong to assume that the entire LXX was translated with uniform competence.

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

RyanS2

Apikorus, very informative essay. I've also heard something to this effect:

The Lubavitcher (orthodox Hassidic Jew, or correct me if I'm wrong) take on "Yeshua" is that he is the false prophet who tests the faith of the Jews in God. Deuteronomy 13, verses 3,7, who would perform real miracles and have the power to make true prophecies. Here's their take on it:

"The purpose would be to test whether Jews are truly committed to living under the Law, or whether they would be tempted to join the false path to salvation (v. 3-6, 7-8, 11). In this Biblical passage, G-d repeatedly commands the Jews to kill this false prophet, lest the evil spread and destroy many souls. (You can go to religioustolerance.org and look up Jewish persecution for many examples of this.)

To be accepted by the people, the false prophet would sometimes pretend to be a righteous Jew who fulfills the Law, but at key moments he would turn against certain details of the Law in order to make the breach (v. 6, 7). This is the reason that verse 1 commands not to add or subtract any details from the Law, and verse 5 warns to remain steadfast with all the traditions of the Law.

In Deuteronomy 17, this false prophet is also described as someone who would rebel against the authority of the judges of the Jewish people, and who should be put to death for his rebelliousness (v. 8-13, esp. v. 12). Who are the judges? The highest court in Israel was the Sanhedrin, which was established by Moses (Exodus 18:13-26; Numbers 11:16-29), and which lasted more than 15 centuries. The members of the Sanhedrin were the rabbis known as "Pharisees" (Pirushim, "those with the explanation"). G-d gave permanent authority to these judges to interpret the Law and G-d's Word, and it is a commandment to follow their decisions without turning even slightly to the right or the left (Deut. 17:11). But the false prophet would challenge the authority of the Sanhedrin, thus revealing himself to be an evil man.

In the book of the prophet Daniel, this false prophet is described as a king (the eleventh horn on a terrible beast) who would wage war against the Jews (the "holy ones"; see Deut. 14:2 on this term) and would change the Law — including the calendar and the holidays (Daniel 7:8, 20-25). Elsewhere, this false prophet is described as a king who would disregard the G-d of his fathers, exalting himself as a god and giving honor to this new god-head (Daniel 11:36-39).

The man known today as "Jesus" fulfilled all these prophecies. He became a "king" (over the Christian church) who changed the original Law, doing away with the Hebrew calendar and the Biblical holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos — the Festival of Tabernacles, Passover, etc.). He disregarded the one, infinite G-d of the Hebrew Bible in favor of a new "trinity" that included himself. And he repeatedly broke the Law by committing terrible sins, while openly challenging the G-d-given authority of the rabbis of the Sanhedrin.

Naturally, Jesus did sometimes pretend to respect the Law, but whenever he thought he could get away with it, he turned right around and broke that same Law. In Matthew 5:17-19, he declared that he came to fulfill the Law, and in Matthew 23:1-3 he defended the authority of the rabbis. But the rest of the time, he rebelled against the Law — thus showing that his occasional words of piety were meant only to hide his evil agenda. The following sins of Jesus are recorded in the "New Testament":

1) Jesus repudiated the laws of kosher food (Mark 7:18-19). [Compare this to the prophet Daniel's strict adherence to kashrus, in Daniel chapter 1.]

2) He repudiated the laws of honoring one's parents, and called on his followers to hate their parents; he also dishonored his own mother (Matthew 10:34-36; Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 14:26).

3) He violated the Sabbath by picking grain, and incited his disciples to do the same (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-26).

4) He again violated the Sabbath by healing a man's arm, which was not a matter of saving a life, and he openly defied the rabbis in his total repudiation of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-13; Mark 3:1-5). [Compare this to G-d's view of violating the Sabbath, in Numbers 15:32-36, Nehemiah 10:30-32, and dozens of other places throughout the Bible.]

5) Jesus brazenly defied and disobeyed the rabbis of the Sanhedrin, repudiating their authority (This is recorded in many places throughout the New Testament, but look especially at Matthew 23:13-39 and John 8:44-45)."

Interested in your take on it.

Metacrock

I'm not Jewish, I don't speak Hebrew. But I have a Rabbi. He's a real actual Rabbi and Tovia Singer can't dispute his credentials, he works in a real Jewish community, and he was ordained in the ture Jewish way (I forget that term) but he believes that Jesus is the Messiah.

Metacrock

HU? How did I do that? I don't recall saying anything insluting to him. If I did it was a misunderstanding. I don't assume he doesn't know as much as I. What does that mean anyway?