Baalazel

We have a difference of view. I am saying Jesus and his story is a fiction laced with symbolism and metaphor. The character of Judas has always been troublesome. I had never thought to apply symbolic meaning to Judas though it now seems to fit the story well.

Nothing in my post works against the criteria for a Messiah, which seems to be rather simple. The Messiah would be a military leader chosen by God to restore the nation of Israel to a place of dignity and respect among the nations. As yet no man has accomplished that goal.

It is not possible to deny the destruction of Israel in 70 CE. That the story of Judas may offer a symbolic understanding of the event is interesting in that it points us to a method of understanding his story. If you want to apply salvation history to events regarding Rome and the Church feel free to do so. If you want to offer some argument against the symbolic interpretation of scripture you have yet to do so. My argument is that the story of Jesus is best understood as symbolism. Some of that symbolism may refer to historic events. That reference in no way negates the symbolic nature of the text.
Reveling in the destruction of Israel is not my purpose nor is it found in my post. I do not deny that Rome was despotic and brutal.
How Christianity chooses to prove itself is of little interest to me. I have no quarrel with the Jews and worrying who won this battle now thousands of years on is of no interest to me at all.

Baal

Baalazel

Working on it. The old brain runs slower now so it will take a little time.

Baal

J-D

Or maybe it was just a coincidence. It was a common enough name at the time.

MaineWoodsmith

Technically, none of the prededing is quite accurate. When properly translated from Greek it is true that there should be only a single form of the word which is, indeed, Judah. In Greek however there exists both of the forms: IOUDAS (Judas) and IUDA(N) (Judah). The former is the genitive case of the latter but, for all practical purposes Judas, Judah, and for that matter, Jude, are identical except in grammatical form. The confusion is the result of inept translation from Greek into English (compounded by the fact that a bankrupt modern educational system no longer exposes students to ancient languages in any meaningful way).

mg01

Jewish writings consistantly blame bad things on their own failings. It seems no different that early Christians writers would pick up on this theme and use it.

Is it sufficient to say Judas betraying Jesus is symbolic of Judah's rejection of Jesus? If put this simply, what does the symbolism say? One obvious reading is the events of 70 CE and the notion that Judah was squashed by Rome because they rejected Jesus, their own messiah. Could the betral symbolism have arisen prior to 70? What would it have meant in that context? Potentially how far does the alegory of the story of Jesus go?

J-D

I don't see how failure to expose students to ancient languages is a sign of educational bankruptcy.

(If, for some reason, you think it's important to expose students to the concept of case inflections, this can be done through modern languages as easily as ancient ones.)

Toto

various posts by IamJoseph and responses centering on IamJ's repetition of worn themes have been split off here.

IamJoseph

No, because it was the Jews who negated their own candidates. Christianity never did so of their own false Messiah.

IamJoseph

Those are not the errors, and one speaking in their own language is acceptable. The problem is when a sacred scripture does not also include the original Hebrew names - which borders on a falsehood - or worse. I note that although the Hebrew bibe is in Hebrew - nonetheless it gives the non-hebrew names in its original form. This tells me the Gospels was inculcatng that the Hebrew was dead - or should be, and in the process it abuses historical veracity. The names Judas & Jesus in Judea is fiction.

semiopen

One might say that "false messiah" is redundant.

In the case of Jesus, I don't think there is any argument that he has done the best job so far.

I'm not sure a religion can be judged on its skill in rejecting pretenders to impossible titles, but certainly Judaism has demonstrated no special skill in this regard anyway.