IamJoseph

Any contemporanous proof - or is this more gospelspeak?

ph2ter

And that would mean what?

Paul for the crucifixion of Jesus used quotations from the Scriptures which also have some connections with the Purim observations.
Paul in Gal. 3:13-14 says: "Christ Redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, having Become a Curse for us...for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree". The quotation comes from Deut 21:23 which, in the LXX, reads: "because cursed by God is everyone hung on a tree." By the NT period the expression "to hang on a tree" was understood as crucifixion (Acts 5:30).
Haman also hangs on a tree and is also considered to be cursed (in reference to Purim, the Talmud states that one is to drink to the point of not knowing the difference between "cursed is Haman" and "blessed is Mordechai."). Paul applies the quotation to Jesus, omitting the phrase "cursed by God". Maybe this was the main reason for the Jews not to accept the crucified Savior as Paul states in 1. Cor. "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness"
It seems that here Paul considers Christ to be essentially some sort of Haman for the Jews.
But exactly such a messiah was revealed to him by studying the Scripture.

spamandham

I don't know Greek, so i can't say how accurate this is, but I have seen it argued here that this is ambiguous and can also mean 'in accordance with', but I see no a priori reason to prefer that interpretation.

show_no_mercy

I've never heard this argument before. I'm not an expert on Greek, but I always understood "logia" to mean "words" or "speaking" - specifically something that is spoken; it's the plural of "logos" which is used in the introduction of John 1:1 to describe Jesus as "the word". "Grafas" always means "scripture" as in something written down.

Juststeve

Doug Shaver:

You miss my point about Joseph Smith. Of course he wrote a book that many came to believe in. The question is why would anyone believe a book written by someone already know as a fraudster. Why have certain rediculous belief systems prospered at all. What is it that makes Mormonism or Christianity for that matter plausible to anyone?

In the case of Christianity, as far as we know Jesus wrote nothing and I am uncertain as to exactly what he said to engender belief. The quotes in the Gospels are too uncertain for me to rely upon at least so far as the details of what he said. What we have though is what the advocates for the Jesus movement wrote after Jesus was dead and it is those writings along with oral stories which surely caused belief to grow. Unless you posit Christians without Jesus we know that the movement did grow and had reached Rome by 64 C.E. What I want to know is why did this happen. Why did this one of many superstitions become a world religion taken seriously by more than a billion people? That was the point of the Joseph Smith reference.

Steve

bacht

Basically everything in the NT except the gospels. If you read the epistles as if there were no Mark et al you'll see that they talk about how Christ was revealed through scripture in "these latter days". The proof comes supposedly from the Holy Spirit and the miracles of the apostles, not from any man crucified by Pilate. The author of Hebrews has a whole spiritual temple and altar to replace the earthly ones (as in Revelation).

The first Christians were people who believed that "death is swallowed up in victory" and the end of all things was near. I don't think it's hard to imagine eschatological (ie fringe) Jews poring over the Hebrew and Greek OT and finding new kinds of messiahs. The DSS crew had two.

Doug Shaver

Known by whom? Who knew he was a fraudster, and how did they know it?

Smith began telling people about his initial vision (he had not yet written the Book of Mormon) during the late 1820s in Palmyra, NY. Was it common knowledge at that time, among the people living in and around Palmyra, that he was a fraudster? If so, on what evidence was that knowledge based? He he been convicted of fraud by any court? If not, had anyone credibly accused him of any fraudulent activity?

ph2ter

Regarding the claim of Papias that ‘Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language' it is interesting to note that many OT quotations in the Gospel of Matthew appear to be independent translations from the Hebrew text.

(5) To an unusual degree interest is manifested in fulfilled prophecy. Whereas all the Evangelists give some attention to this, Matthew goes out of his way to provide an Old Testament setting for significant events in Jesus' life, especially in its early stages: his birth (1:23), his birthplace (2:6), the return from the Egyptian sojourn (2:15), the killing of the babes of Bethlehem (2:18), residence in Nazareth (2:23), the work of the forerunner (3:3), the location of his principal labors (4:15-16), his healing ministry (8:17), his demeanor as God's servant (12:13-21), the parabolic cast of his teaching (13:35), the offer of himself to Israel (21:5), and his arrest (26:56). With the exception of the reference in 2:6, which is attributed to the scribes, each one of these is prefaced with a formula indicating the fulfillment of Scripture. These quotations are not in any substantial agreement with the LXX, but appear to be independent citations relying more on the Hebrew than on the Greek text. In his remaining citations Matthew follows the LXX closely, in agreement with the other Synoptists.
'Introduction to the New Testament' (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Everett Falconer Harrison

So, albeit the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in the Greek, many of OT prophecies quoted in that gospel look like they are taken from some handbook of OT prophecies written in the Hebrew language.

show_no_mercy

I recall there being more than just "one" LXX. It seems as though there were many variations of the LXX with only one or two surviving to modernity. This is all recollection and could be wrong though.

ph2ter

The gospels sometimes tend to diverge from the Septuagint, with Matthew showing the most disagreement.
Some analysis could be seen there
My impression is that differences which Matthew shows are rather because of a translation independent of LXX.