stephan huller

Philo's anatole figure looks remarkably similar to what we might call a heavenly messiah (although the word messiah is not used). It is not clear that the word 'messiah' or Christ was original in the Christian tradition.

spin

When you cite material you need to be specific. The above is not helpful. I assume you refer specifically to 9:6 in its context. Let me start by giving the NJPS translation so that we can see how Jewish people read the text in order to take us out of the ethos of manipulative christian translation.

[t2]For a child has been born to us,
A son has been given to us.
And authority has settled on his shoulders.
He has been named
"The Mighty God is planning grace;
The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler"[/t2]

The NRSV is quite similar except for reflecting the more christianizing name:

[t2]"Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God,
The Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"[/t2]

Note the fact that the verbs at the start are in the perfect forms, indicating that the child already exists. Some christian translations deliberately use the future to make the "prophecy" clearer. We are in fact dealing with a kingship statement and nothing about the messiah.

Isaiah is contextualized in the reigns of Ahaz and his son, Hezekiah, this latter whose name means, not unreasonably, "mighty god" or "Yah is my strength". The text is a specific reference to the Davidic ruler. Once the one born has been seen as Hezekiah and the name has been clarified with reference to "mighty god" there is nothing that is not simple to understand from the context. The Davidic ruler is everlasting father to his people through the continuation of the royal line. Hezekiah is the ruler of peace because he sided with the Assyrians against aggression from Israel and surrounding realms, bringing peace to Jerusalem for some years.

Text and context are no help to you. That leaves you with the task of finding something that I specifically asked for, a reference regarding the messiah in the Hebrew bible, not simply a christianizing interpretation of material taken out of context.

So for a fourth time could supply a specific reference regarding the messiah in the Hebrew bible? Please choose more carefully next time.

If it weren't for the fact that you were purveying christian dogma, I would call your behaviour manipulative and deliberately obfuscating. Your o.p. is relatively plain rehearsal christian beliefs and as such only marginally skirts around the guidelines of this forum. I see no effort in your post of coming to grips with the material in any scholarly manner. How am I supposed to deal with someone who displays incapability of neutral reasoning and seems intent on putting out thread upon thread which reflect church doctrine? The irony is that you found my attempt to coherently address the messiah problem "obtuse".

Jayrok

You may have answered your own question:

Without historical Jewish theology, Christianity loses all meaning.

That is why they combed through the OT for references to tag to Jesus. The new religion had to be the next step to Judaism or else it would have to start from scratch.

A Roman savior would have needed his own roots. With a Jewish savior the back story was already there. Traditional Jews rejected the idea of God becoming man or sending a flesh/blood son, but obviously there were many Jews who were influenced to accept the concept.

As you said, without historical Jewish theology, Christianity loses its meaning and probably its ability to spread.

rlogan

My eyes must be imagining this then:

This is the bold-faced assertion by Christians that they are the "real" Jews whereas the Jewish themselves are impostors.

But when that illogic (and offensive position towards Jews) is highlighted, the tactic is to deny you are doing so. We note you do not actually make the positive statement "Christianity is not Jewish".

If you start with that statement, then obviously you can't contradict yourself immediately afterwards by saying that Christians are the "real" Jews.

What Christians need is Jesus to be validated by all the alleged Hebrew Bible prophecies. So they aren't interested in anything except propagating that hijacking of the Jewish scriptures.


That's better. So stop asking that question because it has been answered innumerable times and there are contemporary examples of that very thing happening. You cannot very well say that it is unlikely in an age of near universal illiteracy when it happens before our eyes in an area of near universal literacy. It is far, far more likely then than now.

And what will the symptoms be? The symptoms will be the inconsistencies between the original faith and the one laying claim to it. That is exactly what we have here. Otherwise Jews would be Christians.


There is a difference between what you call being "smug" and lying. The claim of Christians that the Jewish are impostors is a legitimate astonishment. It is also so offensive to Jews that we have a right to point it out.

Obviously it makes you uncomfortable to have this pointed out. So don't confuse a legitimate reaction to an extreme position with lying in order to evade debate.

You've corrected that now, so thank you.

Sheshbazzar

Interesting how many different Christian denominations boldly claim "The Christian Church is the real Israel." And if not outright state so (and many do), imply that all Jews who have not accepted Christianities Jeezuz Gawd as their personal saviour are going to be tortured in the fires of Hell for all eternity.

TedM

I NEVER see Christianity as 'Jewish'. Or Christians as the 'real' Jews. My understanding (I have doubts about the truth of the history, of course) has always been that from the perspective of Christianity the Jewish are the race of people descended from Jacob, belonging to one of the 12 tribes. That they were and are still the Chosen people of God, and will always remain special to Him. And that through them the entire world is to be blessed. That the way that occurred is God coming in the form of a Jewish man, Jesus, who was their Messiah, foretold by countless Scriptures. That through him the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled in that God's laws will be in the hearts of men. Yes, that means the abolition of Law, but never the abolition of the special status of the Jewish people.

I think this is pretty close to the universal view of Christian theologians, and many lay people. It's perhaps the reason the US considers Israel to be a friendly ally. I can't imagine why the Jewish people would find that to be offensive in any way whatsoever.



I need to continue to ask questions to understand it better, and hopefully resolve what would seem to me to be problems it would cause with original 'owners'-- the Jews, for those that create the religion, and those that followed it. Since the Romans would not be friendly toward a one-God only religion, and the Jews wouldn't like the crucified savior concept, I wonder what the marketing strategy would have been, and who was to benefit, as it would seem to only have negative consequences..some others have responded and I'll look those over..


I've never considered the Jewish to be imposters, and don't even really know where that comes from. They are the 'favored' and continue to be, but Christianity says they didn't recognize the way of salvation. But that's no different than has been their history for centuries -- the OT is mostly full of how the Jewish people suffered because they continued to disobey God despite being the Chosen Ones. I see no grounds for feeling offended here, especially when Christians in no way see the Jewish as being excluded from God's 'new' plan of salvation. I think Christians tend to be more pleased when a Jewish person converts to Christianity than anyone else -- because Christians feel like the Chosen One has 'come home', in addition to the idea that Christians owe a debt of gratitude to the Jewish--since it is only through them that Christ came to save the rest of the world. It is no small matter to a Christian to be a Chosen One of God.


But my view isn't extreme. It is the norm, rlogan. It's the conventional viewpoint, so I am only uncomfortable to the extent that the reaction some have here (I never realized how many Jewish posters we have!) seems unjustified. Still does.

My OP started with 5 premises. I thought they were universally accepted. It still isn't clear to me which ones would not be, or the evidence against them. I then proceeded with 3 statements that I considered to be logical inferences from the 5 premises. It was THOSE that I thought would be under question/debate.

Instead this thread proceeded to an amazing degree in a wholly unexpected direction. It really caught me off guard. Spin's claim that the hundreds of Messianic passages are Christian inventions despite being referenced in the ancient Jewish writings, and in many cases unambiguously referring to a future time of peace, etc.. completely threw me off guard as that was one of the 5 premises I thought was accepted by all. I still don't understand where he is coming from on that.

spin

I've tried to make it simple for you, TedM, but let me try again.

1. Christians are generally ignorant of the significance of the term "messiah" and its Greek translation "christos".
2. Christians routinely take the Hebrew bible out of context when dealing with the concept of the messiah, creating references to the messiah where there are no references at all.
3. Christians routinely aggregate references to kings (textually past, present and future) and various other figures as referring to Jesus, all of which is eisegesis.
4. Messianic Jews also repurposed biblical references when the context of the original statements was obscured.
5. Messianism is a late occurrence from towards the end of the previous era, certainly after the time of the Hellenistic period book of Daniel, so finding messianism in the Hebrew bible is anachronistic.

Still don't know where I am coming from? Figures.

I await your response to post #62 of this thread.

rlogan

All the false flattery preceding that is so patronizing. They're the chosen ones... just as long as they become Christians.




So you have no empathy.

Application of argumentum ad populum, and even within that bad argument you are wrong. There are about 1.6 billion Christians worldwide, so about one in five is even Christian at all. Amongst those, most aren't even paying attention to much of anything and are just participating in a culture they grew up in. Maybe roughly half that have any inkling at all regarding the relationship between Jewish literature and Christian. So it is probably more like one in ten can even formulate a coherent sentence on the subject we are discusssing, with your point of view.

If you had a logical position you would not rely on argumentum ad populum that is wrong even if the fallacy were true.



Having Spin weigh in on this is like bringing a howitzer to a badmitton contest.

The Jews are not Christians. It's as simple as that. The minute you start braying about them not understanding their own scriptures, you have attained a perch of arrogance that is not becoming for men of reason, logic, and consideration towards others.

I understand though. At one time I was using Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" in speech classes.

As an exercise though, I wonder if you could trouble yourself to read up on what the Jews have to say about Christian interpretations of their scriptures.

Grog

It would be extremely difficult to hit that little birdy thing with a howitzer. Hard enough with those little rackets.

TedM

It's a shame that you have to stoop to accusing me of insincerity rlogan. From where i sit you are damaged goods in some way. I didn't falsely flatter the Jews in any way. Every word I wrote I meant. What the F is your problem?

I think most Christians with any knowledge of their faith recognize the Jewish foundation and the favored role that God bestowed upon the Jews.


IF that's what I was doing you might have a point. I never said they don't understand their own scriptures. I have said that the scriptures are sufficiently ambiguous to explain why Christianity originated from a crucified man during Passover. I've made no personal judgement. Unfortunately I think people here -- several Jews apparently -- are so sensitive that they can't get past their own stereotypes of Christians to understand what I, a non-Christian, am saying about a naturalistic origin of Christianity based on a human founder within the context of the Jewish culture. I would take offense if I didn't realize there is something psychological going on...

You know what rlogan? I'm not interested in doing what you ask because you have been too lazy to address anything specifically. What are you trying to accomplish other than whining? Why don't you do something a bit more mature -- a bit closer to what spin did -- and actually address the inconsistencies you find in my OP?