gregor

"Orthodox Freethinker" - well, you're half correct (with your moniker).

Don't expect anyone here to accept your unsupported apologist assertions on eye-witness authorship of the gospels or the cut-and-paste prophesy fulfillment stuff. We've seen enough of this drivel already.

Orthodox_Freethinker

The textual evidence does not requireMarkan priority, it is only an interpretation.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Go to an anti-Christian Jewish site to find out. I'd recommend Jews for Judaism.

Peace.

Steven Carr

Scared to try to show why Jews cannot understand their own scriptures, in case the exposure of their methods of exegesis proves a double-edged sword?

Amaleq13

Then your assertion is pointless rather than incorrect.

My mistake.

pharoah

The psalmist is asking God to resurrect him. This psalm is first-person, so unless you have evidence that Jesus wrote it, then you have to resort to typical Christian contortions to try to apply it to Jesus. The fact that translators capitalize "Holy One" means nothing.

This is another misapplied psalm. The psalmist is thanking God for not letting him die. Notice the phrase "thou hast kept me alive". Are you prepared to argue that Jesus never really died?

Let me quote another verse from the same chapter by the same psalmist.

4 I said, "O LORD, have mercy on me;
heal me, for I have sinned against you."

Now why does the first verse apply to Jesus and this one doesn't?

Yet another distorted verse. The prophet was addressing the nation of Israel. That's who the "us" is referring to. Who is "us" referring to in a Messianic context? What exactly does it mean to say that Jesus was revived after two days, but rose on the third day?

Let's look at another incident from Matthew 27.

7And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

8Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

9Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

10And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

The problem with the above passage is that there is no such prophecy in Jeremiah. The author of Matthew and his buddies fabricated the whole Judas betrayal tale but their carelessness betrayed them here.

Have you ever stopped to ponder how senseless the Judas betrayal tale is? Jesus was portrayed in the gospels as a well-known figure to the Jews and their leaders. For what possible reason would they need Judas to identify him? This story has all the hallmarks of pure mythology.

So Matthew had a copy of the OT in front of him as he wrote his fabrication. Just remember that idea, it will explain many of these prophecy fullfillments to you. Also there's the minor detail that his account of Judas death is completely contradicted in Acts.
Zechariah 12 and 13 are clearly referring to "Last Days" events. It's a sad, sad state of affairs when Christian apologists rip one verse out of the whole chapter and try to apply it to to the time of Jesus. The two chapters are seamless passages, so any honest application of prophecy would use the entire chapters. But you can't do that.

Once again, this is not a prophecy. The psalmist is asking God to deliver him from his enemies. Read the whole chapter instead of ripping a single verse out.

I could go on and on with the rest of this stuff, but I'm sure it's more of the same. Nowhere is Christian apologetics more disingenous than in the area of prophecies.

Orthodox_Freethinker

We know the authorship of the Gospels from internal evidence and early second-century testimony. The Gospels themselves are essentially anonymous but you'd still never be able to disprove the authorship attributed to them.

Though I am not a Hindu, I hold no hostility toward Hinduism. If one were able to prove the truth claims of Hinduism over Christianity, I would be a Hindu.
Atheists should have the same intellectual fluidity for the Christian faith.

Peace.

Orthodox_Freethinker

No, not scared at all. The question is whether or not Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and whether or not He resurrected in order to prove this claim. The Jews may have expected a conquering earthly king, but Jesus gave us something beyond what anyone could have expected.
In death, He conquered death. That is much more amazing than a king who by the sword, conquers Rome.

"Question: Why do Christians claim there will be a second coming of Jesus?
Answer: Even according to the New Testament, Jesus did not fulfill many crucial messianic prophecies during his lifetime. He was neither the singular ruler promised nor did he exercise any regal authority. God promises concerning the Messiah, "And David My servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd . . . and My servant David shall be their prince forever" (Ezekiel 37:24-25).

Jesus also did not fulfill the prophecies which speak of the benefits the people of Israel were to enjoy under the Messiah's rule and leadership (e.g., Ezekiel 34:25- 31, 37:21-28; Isaiah 11; Jeremiah 23:6, 30:10-11).

The prophecies concerning the Messiah and the benefits of his rule over Israel form an integral unit which one cannot fragment in order to proclaim limited fulfillment of prophecy during Jesus' lifetime and to rationalize that the remaining fragments will be fulfilled during a second appearance. There was a total lack of fulfillment by Jesus of these prophecies.

Christians wait in vain for an expected fulfillment of messianic prophecies during a second coming by Jesus. Their count is off. This would have to refer to a third coming. The first coming covers the period prior to Jesus' death and the second coming spans the period from his alleged resurrection to his alleged ascension.

Christian expressions of faith in the eventual fulfillment of the promise to return cannot be allowed to distort the facts. The New Testament's imminent expectation that Jesus would soon return and establish the kingdom of God was left unfulfilled. There was no visible signs of universal peace and prosperity, the destruction of Israel's enemies, a reuniting of the scattered exiles of Israel, and a reign of righteousness over the earth (e.g., Isaiah 2:23-24, Isaiah 11, Micah 4:1- 3).

Jews still hold to this biblical conception of redemption. It is the absence of such characteristics that trouble Jews, then and now, concerning the Christian claim that Jesus was "the Christ."
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq115.html


Christ's resurrection was not His "second coming" as this distorts for His body was already present in earth, it only came back to life in a profoundly new way. When Jesus ascended into Heaven is the moment that Jesus began waiting for His second coming to earth again. Furthermore, Jesus himself stated that the day and the hour of His coming is unknown and that He will come like a theif in the night, when all people least expect it. Therefore, the contention that the early Christians expected the second coming in their lifetime is false. Even if they did, Jesus did not teach them to.

Peace.

Dean Anderson

We do have such intellectual fluidity, so prove the truth claims of Christianity over atheism and we will become Christians.

Hint 1: Simply asserting the claims of Christianity and demanding that we disprove them does not count.

Hint 2: Demonstrating the flaws in your attempted proofs, and pointing out the lack of support that you give to your assertions, does not constitute "hostility" to your claims.

Orthodox_Freethinker

Being able to defend the truth claims of Christianity against criticism actually would count. It would be impossible to defend the Christian faith if one were able to produce the dead corpse of Christ and if any negative evidence of this nature exists, please provide it.

Peace.