Lógos Sokratikós

No one could do anything about it. The Vatican was willing to save Jews but not all the way to immolate itself. The Italians cooperated under duress, and the Scandinavians tried to protect "their" Jews and in a great deal succeded. The only Christian population to blame were the Germans (notable exceptions were father Maximilian Kolbe and protestant theologian Karl Barth).

Toto

Gibson cross examines No Robots split

Toto

The Croatians and Croatian Catholic clerics in particular cooperated enthusiastically. And it is not clear that the Vatican did all that it could, even without destroying itself.

Lógos Sokratikós

Some did some didn't. My point is not to overgeneralize. I feel it's important to point it out for the sake of the memory of those who did put themselves in harm's way.

FireBrandon

Argument #2 against Jesus divinity/messiahship: Jesus prayed to God as His father poetically like Jews often do. He was not divine, but rather the pagan Greeks thought He must be when he addressed Yahweh as His Father. It was like Jesus must have been descended from Yahweh like Hercules was descended from Zeus.

This quote is from pp. 17-18 of Aryeh Kaplan's book "The Real Messiah." You can find this book online at jewsforjudaism.org

"During his lifetime, Jesus often spoke of G-d as “my Father in
Heaven.” For the Jews, this was a common poetic expression, and one
that is still used in Jewish prayers. For the pagan gentiles, however, it had
a much more literal connotation. The Greeks already had legends about
men who had been fathered by gods who had visited mortal human
women. Legends like these had even sprung up about such eminent men
as Plato, Pythagoras, and Alexander the Great. Why should Jesus be any
less? They therefore interpreted his poetic expression quite literally, to
mean that he had an actual genetic relationship with G-d. Jesus therefore
became the “son of G-d,” conceived when the Holy Ghost visited Mary. As the son of "G-d," Jesus was not susceptible to sin or even death."

From the passionate fighting of the Maccabees and their disdain for Hellenistic Jews outside of Palestine it seems to me that it was a great concern of the Jews that many of their people were succumbing to "Hellenization", which is a term that describes how Greek culture and language were infiltrating most of the known world. Where was the church founded and predominantly located anyways? Asia Minor! And where did the church end up? Rome! These two places were rich with a pagan heritage and they would view Jesus' sayings very differently than a Jew would. Where did Paul grow up? Tarsus. It is easy to see Matthew and Luke's strained hermeneutics in trying to make Isaiah 7:14 be about the virgin birth. If Jesus MUST have been the Son of God, but he was born of Mary, then He must have been a God-Man and Joseph was not really his father. But more on that later. I used to be brainwashed into accepting the virgin birth as a fact without considering it. Of course I didn't believe any other God-men were real, but Jesus was another story.

Please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken. Also, I am unaware of the current "answer" in Christian apologetics to this question and so I would appreciate it if any of you who know what they would say would post a rebuttal like they would use. I'll find it eventually, but I would appreciate it if any of you already know it.

John Kesler

Actually, only Mathew appeals to Isaiah 7:14 (Matthew 1:22-23). Luke may have based his story, at least in part, on the Hannah-Samuel pericope (1 Samuel 1-2; cf 1 Samuel 2:1-10 to Luke 1:46-55). Both stories also involve the motif of a miraculous birth. Yahweh had closed Hannah's womb (1 Samuel 1:6) before opening it (1 Samuel 1:19-20).

Jeffrey Gibson

And neither story -- notably, especially Matthew's, where the emphasis is on Emmanuel, not virgin -- absolutely excludes human participation in the conception of Jesus. On this, see Robert J. Miller's Born Divine:The Births of Jesus and Other Sons of God (or via: amazon.co.uk).

rhutchin

I don't think the idea for the second coming is from the OT. It is a NT concept and derives from such passages as--

Acts 1
6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
8 “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel,
11 who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

The issue is whether the OT scriptures should be split between a first and second coming. If Jesus were the Messiah, and therefore, the author of the Hebrew Scriptures, then He would know what they were meant to say. The basic issue comes down to whether Jesus was the Messiah that He claimed to be.

If a person does not accept the notion that Jesus was the Messiah, then he will not accept the notion that the OT prophecies actually spoke of a first and second coming. If a person does accept the notion that Jesus was the Messiah, then he will accept the notion that the OT prophecies actually spoke of a first and second coming.

spin

Obviously Joseph has been excluded in any participation in Mt, hasn't he? He has been detached from a genealogical link in 1:16, excluded from participation as they hadn't cohabited (1:18), and he simply didn't know though he didn't want to expose her. And monkey business would seem to have been excluded by the angel giving the source of the engendering as the holy spirit (1:20).

And how else are we to interpret the shock of Mary to the news of the conception when she says that she hadn't known a man followed by the declaration that the power of the most high will overshadow her, explaining why that which is to be born will be called son of god (1:34f)?

Isn't one working hard not to exclude human participation, while there is not a hint from the writers that there was any human participation (barring the reservation of Joseph in Mt 1:19, which the angel handles)?


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

All that means is that the event is divinely directed and, as with the other illegitimacies and irregularities in the genealogy, is being used by God to fulfill his purposes.

Is it the shock of the news of the conception or that she has been slevcetd to be the mother of the Son of the Most High, that she out of all women will be a handmaiden of the Lord as he brings his promises to Israel to fulfillment?

In Luke, the conception has not yet taken place and is predicted for the future.

Jeffrey

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