Jim Larmore

Bernard,
I don't see Acts 1:18-19 as an unfulfillment of the prophecy in Zech 11:13. When you look at it a certain way Judas did buy the field since the legal ownership of the betrayal money never changed from him to the priests. They didn't want it , it was blood money, so they purchased the field with Judas' money. The Potter's field like the Bible said. A fulfillment of prophecy plain and simple. You jump at any chance to invalidate or belittle the inspired word of God.

You never commented on the other prophecies, like Micah5:2 or Jer. 31:15.

Dr. Jim
I have studied a lot over the years on the "scholarly" interpretations of the ancient scripts. They are so messed up they can't tell heads or tails of much of anything. One scholar will contridict another etc. I believe a lot of Biblical scholars are the reason the christian church is in the mess its in today. There are even "Scholars" of the Bible today who don't even give divinity to our saviour Jesus Christ.

I do hold to commentaries of various faiths especially the ones who use direct ancient manuscripts for their interpretations of the Hebrew/Greek/ Caldian. I use the strong's exhaustive concordance which has the various languages and the closest interpretation of the "context" of the what the writer intended. I use either the King James translation or the New King James translation because they are "tranlations" not perverted writings with some biblical verses in them.

Theres not that much of a change in what we find in the dead sea scrolls and the prevailing translated literature. Nit picking a certain text over verbs and applied somantics doesn't prove duality or lack of inspiration to me. It only shows more than one person has been involved interpreting the writings and may have worded it "slightly different. The Bible is not a scientific abstract.

The instances you wrote about Isaiah's account of Hezekiah is not an issue of duality of writing.The instances of Hezekiah's life are in the book of Kings because he was a king of Isreal. They are in the book of Isaiah because Isaiah was the prophet that spoke to King Hezekiah regarding his crisis with Sinacherib and his life extension after being deathly ill. I mean Isaiah was intimately involved here, it only makes sense that he would write about it in his writings. Was Isaiah the writer who physcially penned the words of all his writings , I don't know. He may have had to employ a scribe to put it all down, we just don't know. This is a question in a lot of the ancient writings. However, I'm certain he "authored" the book and thats all thats important at this point.

Clutch

Exercise 1. Diagnose:

Jim Larmore: Almost all Biblical scholars agree on the prophetic dating in Daniel. Oh, and there's no evidence that Isaiah was written by more than one person.

Dr Jim: Biblical scholarship strongly indicates that Isaiah was written by more than one person.

Jim Larmore: Biblical scholars are all messed up. Don't know what they're talking about. Pay them no mind.

Jim Larmore

Clutch.
I get the meaning of your post and I know it looks like I contradict myself , however if you have read the divergent views of biblical scholars much you'd agree with what I wrote, its amazing anyone would take serious anything they say. Their opinions are too varied to make a valid argument on many issues. They do agree on certain things like the 70 week prophecy in Daniel however, not all do but a substantial number do.

Theres about as many "scholarly" opinions on biblical things as there are denominations of faiths.

DrJim

Jim Larmore writes:
Well, what the blazes do you think scholars are supposed to do? As far as the reconstructions of biblical books' compositional history, there are as many theories as theorists, but the problem here is lack firm criteria, not the disagreements themselves. There is no serious challenge to the premise that in the ancient world books could be put together by selective quotes, merging documents etc (see below).


Christians trying to live in two intellectual worlds--that of the biblical inerrancy taught by conservative churches and the world of non-confessional historical studies--are a big reason why biblical scholarship is in the mess it is in today. The mixture of theological claims with compromised historical methodologies results countless studies in which only part of the evidence is really scrutinized: the rest is simply rationalized into some sort of blurred paraphrase of the bible text being passed off as "history". Of course, each person doing this has a different rationalization and level of accomodation with the Churches claims, so they all start aruging and taking up space in the journals. Its like a being a referee in a basketball game with one side complaing it is their turn to serve while the other team argues the just scored a touchdown. They are not on the same channel...


Yup, and you would perpetuate the problem...
And do you mean that Jews can't be biblical scholars? What presumption! And what do you mean "our" saviour? Don't patronize me.


This sentence of yours simply makes no sense at all. I don't know what holding to a commentary means. And what various faiths? I suppose you mean only Christian ones. And except for obvoius paraphrases like children's Bibles and the like, what Christian "faith" does not use ancient manuscripts for the basis for their Bibles? They all do. the problem is, the most ancient manuscripts are not all identical and different churches pick different ones as their canon: the Orthodox Church, for example, has canonized the LXX. Teh LXX cannot, however, be considered a translation of the Hebrew texts that underly Protestant Old Testament which is based on the MT text-type. The ancient Greek translator had a rather different Hebrew version to work with.


How can Strong's concordance provide "closest inteprtation of the context" and authorial intent? I use Evan Shoshan's exhaustive Hebrew concordance and a computer program. So what? All any concordance can do is provide a list of verses in which each Hebrew root word appears. And Strong's may not be always correct in identifying Hebrew roots.

How are the RSV, NRSV, New American Standard or New Jewish Publication Society Version "perverted writings with biblical verses in them". How can you tell, if you have to rely on translations! You can't read the original, yet you judge the results of the translational work of others who can as "perverted"!


Over what does the "translated literature" prevail? I never thought translated literature could do that. There is a tremendous number of variants in the ancient versions. English translations do not go out of their way to footnote them all. Do what I asked: Compare 1 Kings 11-14 in the LXX and MT.
As far as Isaiah 53:10 goes, the difference between LXX and MT isn't really a nit-picking point, since one seems to say the servant will become ill, and the other says god will heal him. What it does show is that the human copiests could change the text, through error or a desire to "correct" to suit their predelictions. Can they all be inspired to write different things?


You are avoiding the point (again). So the writers of both books had need of a Hezekiah episode. Big deal. The issue is why they had THE SAME episode (sorry for yelling). Someone borrowed something from somewhere. That is the point.


Don't really care one way or the other. I'd just like you to prove that Isaiah had something to do with Isa. 53. Hell, I'd be happy if you could Isaiah even existed (I think he did, but I can't prove it either)!

The real question about how things were "authored" is the use of other books as sources. In the ancient world people often "authored" books by selectively quoting from others or adding to existing documents. The LXX additions to Daniel and Esther, the similarity between Isaiah and Kings (and, fo rthat matter, Kings and Chronicles; Kings and Jeremiah; 2 Samuel and Chronicles; Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras (In the Vulgate, its called 3 Esdras). Also compare Psalms 53 and 14; Psalms 108 and 60; Psalms 108 and 57. Repeated passages or expansions in every case. In each we can point to two different books/versions. It stands to reason that the biblical literature may have more such appropriations/expansions in it, but only one versions survived to be canonized and haggled over by scholars. So, it is hardly unreasonable that someone in the late Persian or Hellenistic era took an old copy of Isaiah and expanded it with oracles about Cyrus and poetry about some figure now called the "suffering servant".

The slicers and dicers of Isaiah have a point. Whether any one of the various theories is correct is another matter. But you cannot validly rule them all out by the arguments, evasions, etc. that you are currently relying on.

Steven Carr

Please try to have a go at the 70 week prophecy. Always nice to demolish it again......

Which particular combination of numbers do you fancy trying to make stand up?


Most of them seem to involve claiming the Jews had a year of 360 days. This is just untrue.

The Jews had the same calendar as the Babylonians (wasn't Daniel supposed to be in babylon)

http://www.polysyllabic.com/Babylon.html

Babylon used leap months to have a 19-year cycle, which differed from our system by only about 2 or 3 hours in 10 years.

Why did you choose Artaxzerxes?

You could equally well have chosen :-
The 'word' of Jeremiah that Daniel 9 actually talks about?
- The original edict of Cyrus in 538 BC, which occurs 7 'sevens' after the word of Jeremiah?
- The edict of Darius?

Was it just to make the numbers fit?

Jim Larmore

Steve Carr,
Actually there were three decrees to re-build Jerusalem, the first was in the first year of the reign of Cyrus Ezra 1:1-4 this was about 537 B.C. , the second was in the reign of Darius l soon after 520 B.C. Ezra 6:1-12, the third was in the 7th year of the reign of Artaxerxes Ezra 7:1-26.
In the previous two decrees neither Cyrus or Darius made any genuine "provision" for the reparation to begin. The decree made by Artaxerxes not only gave them the money to do it with but it also gave the jewish state full autonomy. ( subject of course by the overlordship of the persian empire). According to S.H. Horn and L.H. Wood authors of" the Chronicles of Ezra 7" the decree which would have started the 70 week prophecy began in the autumn of 457 B.C.
Since the 69 prophectic weeks contain 483 years, this reaches down to the baptism of Jesus in 27 A.D. or the beginning of His ministry. The entire 70weeks was for the "determination of thy people" Dan.9:24, The messiah was to be cut off in the midst of the week and indeed He was when he was crucified, this put and end to the daily sacrifice.

Now as per your contention of the Jewish calendar not being 360 days , it is well known and accepted that the Jewish calendar contained 360 days for well over a thousand years. Ancient history supports this and it wasn't until well after the 8th century C.E that the 360 day year was abandoned. The Sanhedrin set the more modern jewish calendar in 359 C.E. The fact that they were in Babylon would have nothing to do with what an angel named Gabriel would give Daniel to make this prophecy of a " detemination of thy people". This was a message from heaven via the angel, and it was to a jewish captive named Daniel. Daniel's faithfullness to his religion are well documented in his book. Daniel would probably not have been keeping to the Babylonian calendar "especially to determine this prophecy .

The captive jewish nation was a separate entity within Babylon. They longed to go home and kept nearly all the "original" customs including their calendar.

Dr. Jim , I apologize if you took offense from the statement I made concerning some scholars not giving divinity to Jesus Christ our saviour. I know Jewish traditions don't accept Jesus and I was not referring to them specifically. I was referring to a lot of Christian scholars who don't give divinity to Jesus Christ.

Steven Carr

'Now as per your contention of the Jewish calendar not being 360 days , it is well known and accepted that the Jewish calendar contained 360 days for well over a thousand years. '

CARR
This is not so. Jews had intercalaraty (spelling?) months.



Read 'A History of the Jews in the Time of Jesus Christ' by Emil Schuerer, or give me some evidence of this 360 day year.

It is not a lunar year, it is not a calendar year. It is a figment of the imiganation.

A 360 day year would be out so quickly, it would be impossible to use.

And a bit of evidence that Jesus was baptised in 27 AD would also be nice.

Tiberius reigned 14 AD to 37 AD

Luke 3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar....

This is either 28 or 29 AD.

Daniel
"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.'....It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.'

So you claim that after 69 Sevens the Anointed One (Jesus came), but Daniel's prophecy says the Anointed One would be cut off after 62 Sevens.

So where was Jesus cut off and had nothing either after 62 sevens or 69 sevens, even assuming Gabriel was explaining to Daniel how to interpret a decree that had not happened yet, and was not the decree Daniel knew and was asking about..


I

Jim Larmore

Steve,
The Hebrew calendar's calculation was and is very complicated and what you have said about intercalary months is true. If you look at the evidence the year could be either 354 plus some days or 383 depending on the lunar and celestial rythms. The 360 is an "average" of the way they ran.This was what they accepted so the common person could keep track of it all. The babylonian months were either 29 or 30 day depending on many factors , they added a whole month 3 times every every 8 years. Check out www. webexibits.org click on the history & timeline of ancient jewish calendars it'll tell you the 360 day year was abandoned in the 8th century C.E. which means it was in use before that.

I'll have to do a little digging to get your evidence of Jesus baptism in A.D. 27 , but it has to do with Daniel 9:27, in verse 26 it says after 3 score and two weeks the messiah would be cut off. this verse is not used to set the time of the crucifixion , that was to happen its fulfillment , verse 27 does that . Verse 27 says he would confirm the covenant for one week. Jesus' ministry lasted for 3 and a half years. It says and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease. Jesus crucifixion was in A.D. 31 at passover this is in the midst of the week or 3 1/2 years. The rest of the week was given to them as a chosen nation but at the stoning of Stehen the 70 week prophecy was finished and the favored status of the jewish nation passed to the Gentiles. When Jesus was crucified the vail in the temple was torn in half, God did this to signify that the sacrificial system was over with.

Gregg

I have just a small question. Or questions, actually.

How did the Christians find out that the veil in the temple was torn in half? Who told them about it? Weren't only priests allowed to enter the "holy of holies?" Did the priests go running out in the streets to tell everybody? If so, why is this event not mentioned in any Jewish literature other than the gospels? Is there any good reason for us to take this story at face value, rather than regard it as a fiction?

Steven Carr

365 1/4 was the average of the way they ran

http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-jewish.html is your web page.

I see nothing in there about there ever having been a 360 day year.