Diogenes the Cynic

I'd be happy to. They probably need to hear it.

FYI, Messianic "Rabbis"aren't really rabbis. They're Christian pastors. They call themseles "rabbi" purely as an affectation and frankly a a ruse. They have no connection to Rabbinic Judaism. Some on that list aren't even ethnically Jewish. Some googling tells me that Hargis, for instance, is a former Assemblies of God Minister turned fake "rabbi" who claims to have had a Jewish grandmother. Whoop de doo. Just because a Christian pastor puts a yarmulke on his head it doesn't make him a rabbi.

So-called "Messianic Judiasm" is simply not a Jewish movement. Sorry. It's just a bait and switch strategy to sucker undeucated ethnic Jews.

Carin Nel

Under the rule of WHICH Herod does Mathew say Jesus was born?
As far as I know, there was first Herod the Great, who was made Procurator of Judea by Julius Ceasar in about 47 B.C and governer of Galilea when he was 25 years old, and king of Judea about 37 B.C. At his death in about 4 B.C his kingdom was divided. His son, Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea, about 4 B.C to about 39 A.D. (Luk 3:1-2) Another son, Archelius, was made ruler of Judea and Samaria (Mat. 2:22). He is called "Phillip" in Mt.14:3. Phillip was succeeded by Herod Agrippa I in about 37 A.D.
In Luke 2 : 2 Luke talks about Cyrenius (Quirinius) who was first made governor of Syria. Many claim that he was not made governor of Syria until 10 or 12 years after the birth of Christ. He was Roman consul in 12 B.C. and thus qualified to be a governor. From 12 B.C. to 4 B.C. the names of governors are recorded. From 4 B.C. to 4 A.D. the names are not given. It was during this time that the census took place, and who can disprove the statement here that Quirius, called by Luke Cyrenius, was governor during this time? The word “proto” meaning “first” or “before” as in Jn 1:15, 30; 15:18) so that the verse would read: “This census was before Cyrenius was governor of Syria, or before the one made by Cyrenius.”

Regards,
Carin Nel

Amaleq13

Joseph Fitzmyer, in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, considers that interpretation fatally flawed and most scholars tend to agree.

Diogenes the Cynic

Herod the Great. He's the only Herod with the title of King and Mt. 2:22 identifies him as the father of Archelaus.
"Philip" and Archalaus are two different people. Herod the Great's kingdom was divided between three sons, not two. Antipas got Galilee, Philip got the northeast part of the kingdom (Golan Heights) and Archaleus got Judea. Archaleus was removed from power in 6 CE and Judea was annexed as part of the province of Syria. At that point, the governor of Syria, Qurinius, was required to perform a census. That's the census referred to in Matthew.
No, The census took place in 6 CE. Ten years after the death of Herod the Great. Quirinius became Governor in 6 CE.,
Prote means "first," not "before." That's just wrong. If you don't know Greek, I'd advise you not to try to make arguments from it. Neither the definition of prote nor the grammar of the sentence in question allows for a translation of "before Quirinius was Governor."

I'll try to make the issue a little more simple for you.

Herod the Great died in 4 BCE.
Judea did not become a Roman province until 6 CE.
Before Judea became a province in 6 CE. it was a client kingdom, not subject to census and not under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Syria.
The FIRST Roman census of Judea occurred under Quirinius in 6 CE when it first became a province.

There is a ten year gap between the death of Herod and the census of Quirinius. This is not a resolvable contradiction. We've heard every inerrantist defense. None of them work.

EthnAlln

So, let's see, if "Goldfinger" didn't mention a highly implausible attack on Fort Knox, it would be accepted as the literal truth. After all, the author (scholars differ about this, but let's call him "Ian"), certainly got the geography and the climate right. And there are millions of extant copies of the text, all identical. (I know what Carin will say in response to that last statement. I'm just pointing out that having a lot of identical copies of something doesn't prove that any of them is factual. All it proves is that a lot of people wanted copies of the book. If Harry Potter books had to be copied by hand, we'd still have a lot of them; and most would be identical.)

Is somebody out there claiming that Diomedes wounded the god Ares in a battle in front of Troy? I hadn't heard anyone making this claim. The best evidence is that the Iliad is a compilation of legends from the Mycenaean Civilization that declined some 500 years before the first written copies were made. If you want to put the New Testament on that level, that's fine with me.

I'm rather speechless that you think you have refuted my claim that the Gospel writers simply invented stories out of whole cloth in order to make it appear that Jesus fufilled prophecy. When a writer takes as much trouble as Matthew does to say "This was done in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled...." I immediately say, "This is self-serving testimony." If you want to try again, I'd just point out that you have a huge job in front of you. How can you possibly prove that the fulfillment actually happened? The parsimonious explanation is that the prophetic fulfillments were mostly invented.

EthnAlln

Who's this guy "Emmanuel"? There doesn't seem to be anybody named "Emmanuel" anywhere in the Bible, yet the prophet Isaiah clearly says that a young woman is pregnant and will bear a son and call him Emmanuel. If young "Manny" would show up and identify himself, maybe we could settle some of these arguments.

(Note: I'm told there is something unusual about tenses in Hebrew. Could somebody tell me whether it has a future tense? I know one language---Japanese, because I'm studying it---has only "past" and "nonpast" tenses. Is something similar the case with Hebrew? It would seem to impact on whether the young woman "shall" conceive or "has" conceived.)

Not that any of this will make Carin Nel's arguments anything but shoddy. To argue, as she has done, that archaeology has proved that Jesus was born in Bethlehem requires a breathtaking leap of faith. Or else, a complete inability to know what constitutes evidence.

EthnAlln

Or, as an anti-semite known to me is fond of saying, they are hypocritical fifth-column perverters of the faith trying to get naive Christians to support the state of Israel. Especially Zola Levitt. (Poor guy; he gets it from both sides! To anti-semites, he's a Jew; to Jews, he's the worst kind of goy. And even I can't help him. To me, he's a muddled-headed fool.)

NOGO

If anyone suggests that a virgin is pregnant that person would acknowledge the situation as being abnormal.

Matthew and Luke both do that.

Joseph has second thoughts about his wife to be and thinks about dumping her. Then an he has a dream etc

So it is acknowledged that the pregnant young woman in this case is miraculous rather than the other possibility.

Every young woman was expected to remain a virgin till marriage.
But obviously it does not mean that this was always the case.
Not all cases of pregnant maidens are virgin births.

So while the NT makes it clear that Mary did not fool around with another man before she met Joseph, Isaiah does not. Nowhere does Isaiah even give a hint that there something miraculous going on.

If Matthew has simply said that the maiden Mary was with child and said nothing else we would all believe that Mary and Joseph had been at it before marriage.

Katastrophikus

[slightly off-topic]There's something I don't get: I was reading over Matthew last night before I went to sleep (one of the little Gideon bibles), and he talks of divorce. How does that whole divorce thing come into it? Is it justa bad bible interpretation, or is there something I am missing? Wasn't Mary meant to be pregnant before they got married? [/slightly off-topic]

Carin Nel

Let me make it simple for you all. Let me give you a practical example:
For any man to have invented the New Testament after the time of Christ, and to have attempted to cause it to be received, would have been as if a man had written an account of the American Revolution, and of the celebration of this day (July 4, 1776) from the first, when in fact no revolution was ever heard of, and no one had ever celebrated the Fourth of July. Nor, when such a festival was once established, would it be possible to introduce any account of its origin essentially different from the true one.
But the case of Christianity is even stronger, because we have several different institusions which must have sprung up at its origin, because baptism and the Lord’s Supper have occurred so much more frequently; and because the latter has always been considered the chief rite of a religion to which men have been more attached than to liberty or to life. We have seen that it was impossible that the apostles have been either deceivers or deceived, and that the books of the New Testament could not have been received, either at the time they purport to have been written, or at any subsequent time, if the facts recorded had not taken place.
The testimony of the New Testament highlights the very logic in the above arguments. On more than one occation we have the account of the accusations made by the Jewish religious leaders who wanted Paul executed, and we have Paul’s defence. The complaint against Paul had to do with Christianity being contrary to Judaism. Never was there the accusation that it was based upon fraud or that any of the facts Paul presented were simply false.
Paul appealed to the knowledge that the Roman officials had the facts. We are told that Governor Felix had “perfect knowledge of that way” (Acts 24:22) i.e. of Christianity. Indeed, far from seeing anything contrary to the facts in Paul’s testimony, “Felix trembled” as Paul reasoned with him (25). And when he defended himself before Felix’s replacement, Festus, and King Agrippa, Paul declared, ” The king knoweth all these things, before whom also I speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, for this thing was not done in a corner."(Acts 26:26)
I have just come back from Mexico where I’ve seen the ruins of the Maya people and the great wisdom and knowledge they had, which of course were all destroyed by the Spanish invaders. Even today mathematicians cannot figure out how they could design and build a temple in such a way that once a year the sun would fall on the highest step for half an hour and then move down each step, lingering for half an hour on each step, improvising their sun god’s movement and sliding down from the top of the temple downwards and into the ground. Nobody doubt the existence of the Maya tribe, because there are descendants, monuments, ruins and history books, and of course their manuscripts, even if there are about 3 originals left in the world. Then there is this Spaniard missionary who wrote a book, sharing his experiences with their great leader, their rituals, and their lifestyle. Everyone can see the ruins and imagine how it must have been like during those years when they were still a strong, wealthy tribe, because of the books and the evidence.
My point? No one doubts the existence or even the authenticity of the books written about them. Why? Any historical event, recorded in writing must be judged by men’s outward senses –eyes and ears, that it be done publicly in the face of the world, that not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed; and that such monuments, and such actions and observances, be instituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done. (Mark Hopkins, Evidences)
We know that the Gospels and most of the epistles were written within a few years after the events recorded therein. Thus there were many people still alive who would have refuted what was written if it had not offered a true account of events witnessed by them. It is unthinkable that anyone, in a small country of Israel and so soon after supposed events, would dare to publish fictitious reports of alleged miracles, naming persons and places. Multitudes of people who were still alive from those days and from those regions would have rejected the accounts as lies. It would have been promptly and publicly discredited.
Remember Christianity began right there in Jerusalem. It was based on the claim that this Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth turned prophet, who was acclaimed as the Christ by multitudes and whose miracles were spoken of all over Israel and whom the Romans had crucified, was alive, having died for the sins of the world. The very fact that 3,000 people converted to Christ on the day of Pentecost in the heart of Jerusalem and that thousands more in Jerusalem continued day after day to join this “new faith” is irrefutable evidence that these events really happened.
The opposition did not deny the facts,. Christianity was opposed only because it contradicted the authorities and teachings of the rabbi’s.
Christianity was based upon events which had happened in a small country of Israel and had been consummated right there in Jerusalem.
It was for this reason that Jesus told His disciples to begin their preaching in Jerusalem, to establish the church there first of all, and only then to spread the word to a wider audience. Obviously the multitudes who heard Peter and the other apostles preach knew the facts and could not refute the message.

And neither can you.

Source: Book: "In defence of the faith" by Dave Hunt
Book: " The testimony of the Evangelists" Simon Greenleaf

Regards,
Carin Nel