Freethought & Rationalism Archive

TedM · 07-18-2011, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Vridar seems have a lot of doubt as to whether there was any expectation that a Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. (Link.)

I think 'any' is not the right word. He says he has doubt that there was a consensus of expectation. Very very different than saying he doubts there was any expectation. If he had said that I'd say he is way off just on a common sense level.

In any case, who is Vridar and why should we pay any attention to him?

I would be interested in seeing which documents from before 30 AD discuss the way scripture prophesied the Messiah being born in Bethlehem.

We don't have anything like that, of course. But, see my earlier post that addresses the issue you are concerned about--what the heck WAS Messianic expectation of that time?

I'm trying to find the source. It was really impressive, but I recall that it was removed from the web..maybe it can be found somewhere though..trying to find some posts about it in the archives..

Diogenes the Cynic · 07-18-2011, 08:22 AM

There was no clearly articulated, universal Messianic formula other than that an heir to the throne of David would one day restore the Kingdom, but Micah 5:2 is sufficient evidence that some expectation existed (universal or not) that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem - the interpretation that Micah cannot be referring to the town is tendentious and unsupportable. The association of the Bethlehem-Ephratha conjuction as a place is well established in the Tanakh.

aa5874 · 07-18-2011, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Any argument that Jesus was born in Nazareth is totally CONTRADICTED by apologetic sources.

The FACT that they contradict themselves out of what appears to be embarrassment is what lends some credence to the idea that he was born in Nazareth. Why make your Messiah-God be born in Nazareth, aa?..

But, NO Gospel story claimed Jesus was BORN in Nazareth.

Please READ the stories of Jesus of Nazareth. There is ZERO conflict in the Gospels about the birth place of Jesus in the Gospels.

Jesus was BORN in Bethlehem and LATER went to LIVE in Nazareth.

We have been through this over and over.

Matthew 2:23 -

Quote:

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

Why have an ARTIFICIAL conflict been invented when there is ABSOLUTELY none about Bethlehem and Nazareth in the very Gospels?

This is most bizarre.

You have ZERO sources of EXTANT antiquity that claimed Jesus of Nazareth was born in Nazareth.

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Originally Posted by aa5874

A person does NOT have to be born where they supposedly lived.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

You just supported the Christian argument that he WAS born in Bethlehem.

Are you a Christian now aa?

What!!!!!! What!!!!!!

I just TOLD what was WRITTEN in "Against Celsus" attributed to Origen.

You are telling me what you IMAGINE and I find that to be quite embarrassing.

You MUST first find a source of antiquity that claimed Jesus of Nazareth was BORN in Nazareth and you cannot, have not and will NOT.

Juststeve · 07-18-2011, 08:50 AM

Both Luke and Matthew provide us will far fetched accounts of how Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem in spite of the fact that he was reputed to be of Nazareth. I think that is in itself enough to strongly suggest that at least Matthew and Luke were writing for audiences that expected the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem, an easy mistake to make if you were reading Hebrew Scripture in Greek instead of Hebrew. What the less Hellenized Jews were thinking at precisely the time the Gospels were written is not so easy to know.

Steve

TedM · 07-18-2011, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Jesus was BORN in Bethlehem and LATER went to LIVE in Nazareth.

... Why have an ARTIFICIAL conflict been invented when there is ABSOLUTELY none about Bethlehem and Nazareth in the very Gospels?

Ok, but it really is NOT an ARTIFICIAL conflict aa. The gospel of John spells the conflict out in black and white:

Quote:

41 Others were saying, “This is [a]the Christ.” Still others were saying, “Surely [b]the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him.

John attests to this conflict. Yet, interestingly, John says not a word about Jesus being born in Bethlehem in defense. He KNOWS of the Bethlehem prophecy yet says nothing about a birth there. Perhaps John knew nothing of a Bethlehem tradition for Jesus' birth..yet was honest enough to say there was something causing a conflict--a very REAL conflict.

andrewcriddle · 07-18-2011, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

...............................................
An alternative view is presented here by Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, that Bethlehem was the center of Adonis worship:

Quote:

Some mythologists insist that the Adonis shrine is the very same one as the Christians revere, that instead of originating with Jesus and Christianity, the shrine began with the cult of Adonis, a deity of rebirth and vegetation. They say that the holy cave was consecrated by the heathens to the worship of Adonis and that it was the Christians who took over this pagan centre giving a precedent later for the many early churches in Europe and America being built on the sites of pagan temples.

Indeed, the actual existence of Adonis worship in Bethlehem cannot be disputed it is just a matter of when it took place - before or after the birth of Jesus. Yet the fact that the Church of the Nativity, the oldest continuously used Christian place of worship in the world covers the site of a former temple to Adonis is seldom mentioned. The church's importance is because as well as safeguarding the alleged birthplace of Jesus it is the sole major church now in the Holy Land that survives intact from the early Christian period. This ancient basilica was built by Empress Helena, the devout mother of Emperor Constantine after she travelled from Rome and started turning this eastern corner of the Mediterranean into the Holy Land.

... Saint Jerome, the erudite scholar who was the first to translate the bible into Latin, lived in Bethlehem in the 4th and early 5th centuries and wrote in his Epistle 58, that prior to the construction of the church that the birth cave 'where the infant Messiah once cried' had been consecrated to the worship of Adonis, 'the paramour of Venus'. Like other early Christians he insisted that Adonis' followers came after Jesus, that they were only practicing in Bethlehem during the 180 years between Emperor Hadrian's time, that is 135AD, until the reign of Constantine when the church was built. Jerome also described the site of the Church of the Nativity as being shaded by a sacred grove of trees planted by Hadrian to wipe out the memory of Jesus.
....

The reliability here of Jerome (who seems to be our earliest evidence for Adonis worship at Bethlehem) has been challenged by scholars such as Welten. See discussion at Christians and the Holy Places by Joan Taylor (who believes Jerome is accurate here.)

Andrew Criddle

neilgodfrey · 07-18-2011, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Bethlehem was the traditional birthplace of David, and in popular Jewish belief was the expected birthplace of his Messianic heir. . . . . nor is there any doubt that popular Jewish expectation at the time was that the Messiah would come from the same birthplace as David.

Where do I find the evidence that there was such a "popular Jewish belief" and "popular Jewish expectation"?

Diogenes the Cynic · 07-18-2011, 12:29 PM

In the New Testament, for one thing. In Micah for another.

TedM · 07-18-2011, 01:03 PM

Ok I found what I was looking for through a web search:

http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/appen09.htm

The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Alfred Edersheim 1883

TABLE OF CONTENTS: http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/default.htm

Chapter 5: WHAT MESSIAH DID THE JEWS EXPECT? http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/book205.htm

Quote:

In accordance with all this, the ancient Synagogue found references to the Messiah in many more passages of the Old Testament than those verbal predictions, to which we generally appeal; and the latter formed (as in the New Testament) a proportionately small, and secondary, element in the conception of the Messianic era. This is fully borne out by a detailed analysis of those passages in the Old Testament to which the ancient Synagogue referred as Messianic.9 Their number amounts to upwards of 456 (75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and 138 from the Hagiographa), and their Messianic application is supported by more than 558 references to the most ancient Rabbinic writings.10 But comparatively few of these are what would be termed verbal predictions. Rather would it seem as if every event were regarded as prophetic, and every prophecy, whether by fact, or by word (prediction), as a light to cast its sheen on the future, until the picture of the Messianic age in the far back-ground stood out in the hundredfold variegated brightness of prophetic events, and prophetic utterances; or, as regarded the then state of Israel, till the darkness of their present night was lit up by a hundred constellations kindling in the sky overhead, and its lonely silence broken by echoes of heavenly voices, and strains of prophetic hymns borne on the breeze......

All that Israel needed: 'study of the Law and good works,' lay within the reach of every one; and all that Israel hoped for, was national restoration and glory. Everything else was but means to these ends; the Messiah Himself only the grand instrument in attaining them. Thus viewed, the picture presented would be of Israel's exaltation, rather than of the salvation of the world. To this, and to the idea of Israel's exclusive spiritual position in the world, must be traced much, that otherwise would seem utterly irrational in the Rabbinic pictures of the latter days. But in such a picture there would be neither room nor occasion for a Messiah-Saviour, in the only sense in which such a heavenly mission could be rational, or the heart of humanity respond to it. The Rabbinic ideal of the Messiah was not that of 'a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel' - the satisfaction of the wants of humanity, and the completion of Israel's mission - but quite different, even to contrariety. Accordingly, there was a fundamental antagonism between the Rabbis and Christ, quite irrespective of the manner in which He carried out His Messianic work. On the other hand, it is equally noteworthy, that the purely national elements, which well nigh formed the sum total of Rabbinic expectation, scarcely entered into the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom of God. And the more we realise, that Jesus so fundamentally separated Himself from all the ideas of His time, the more evidential is it of the fact, that He was not the Messiah of Jewish conception, but derived His mission from a source unknown to, or at least ignored by, the leaders of His people

I wonder if he (or him as represented) did separate himself from all the ideas of his time, as this very knowledgeable man wrote. The author was a believer which may well have colored his perceptions. To what extent, I do not know.

Re: Bethlehem:

Quote:

In the Talmud135 it is not only implied, that the Messiah may already be among the living, but a strange story is related, according to which He had actually been born in the royal palace at Bethlehem, bore the name Menachem (Comforter), was discovered by one R. Judan through a peculiar device, but had been carried away by a storm.

http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/appen09.htm

Quote:

In Gen. xxxv. 21 the Targum Pseudo-Jon. paraphrases 'the tower of Eder' (at Bethlehem) as the place whence the Messiah would be revealed.

On Lam. i. 16 there is in the Midrash R. (ed. Warsh. p. 64 b) the curious story about the birth of the Messiah in the royal palace of Bethlehem, which also occurs in the Jer. Talmud.

and

Quote:

Micah ii. 13. See our remarks on Gen. xviii. 4, 5. The passage is also Messianically quoted in the Midrash on Prov. vi. (ed. Lemberg, p. 5 a, first two lines).

The promise in Micah iv. 3 is applied to the times of the Messiah in the Talmud (Shabb. 63 a).

So is the prediction in verse 5 in Shemoth R. 15; while verse 8 is thus commented upon in the Targum: 'And thou Messiah of Israel, Who shalt be hidden on account of the sins of Zion, to thee shall the Kingdom come.'

The well-know passage, Micah v. 2, is admittedly Messianic. So in the Targum, in the Pirqé de R. Eliez. c. 3, and by later Rabbis.

Verse 3 is applied in the Talmud to the fact that the Messiah was not to come till the hostile kingdom had spread for nine months over the whole world (Yoma 10 a), or else, over the whole land of Israel (Sanh. 98 b).

Similarly Micah vii. 6 is applied to Messianic times in Sanh. 97 a, and in Sotah 49 b; also in the Midr. on Cant. ii. 13. And so is verse 15 in Yalkut (vol. ii. p. 112 b.)

In Micah vii. 8, the expression, Jehovah shall be light to me, is referred to the days of the Messiah in Deb. R. 11, ed. Warsh. vol. v. p. 22 a.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carr

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Vridar seems have a lot of doubt as to whether there was any expectation that a Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. (Link.)

I think 'any' is not the right word. He says he has doubt that there was a consensus of expectation. Very very different than saying he doubts there was any expectation. If he had said that I'd say he is way off just on a common sense level.

In any case, who is Vridar and why should we pay any attention to him?

I would be interested in seeing which documents from before 30 AD discuss the way scripture prophesied the Messiah being born in Bethlehem.

Did you volunteer to track down these references? I don't know where to look, myself.

aa5874 · 07-18-2011, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TedM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Jesus was BORN in Bethlehem and LATER went to LIVE in Nazareth.

... Why have an ARTIFICIAL conflict been invented when there is ABSOLUTELY none about Bethlehem and Nazareth in the very Gospels?

Ok, but it really is NOT an ARTIFICIAL conflict aa. The gospel of John spells the conflict out in black and white.....

Again, please read the ALL of the Gospels. The author of gJohn did NOT even claim Jesus was born in Nazareth

In gMatthew the Jews did NOT know Jesus Christ was BORN in Bethlehem and did NOT know Jesus Christ LIVED in Nazareth.

In gMatthew, the Jews thought Herod killed the Christ when he killed the children of Judea.

Examine Matthew 2.

Quote:

1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

4And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

5And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea..........7Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men........And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child.......Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

In gMatthew there is NO conflict. The Jewish people in gMatthew did NOT know of a Jesus Christ, the offspring of a Holy Ghost and a Virgin that was born in Bethlehem or lived in Nazareth.

In gMatthew, assumed to PREDATE gJohn, the birthplace of Jesus Church was UNKNOWN. The Jews did NOT Know the Christ lived among them and in gMatthew Jesus told his disciples NOT to tell any one he was Jesus Christ.

Mt 16:20 -

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Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ....

The earlier gospel of gMatthew shows ZERO conflict.

It was the author of gJohn who ARTIFICIALLY invented a conflict like he did for virtually the ENTIRE Jesus story.

It would appear that it was the the author of gJohn who was EMBARRASSED by the Synoptic Jesus and RE-WROTE the Jesus story and DISCARDED virtually the ENTIRE Synoptic Jesus.

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07-18-2011, 08:22 AM	#22
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	There was no clearly articulated, universal Messianic formula other than that an heir to the throne of David would one day restore the Kingdom, but Micah 5:2 is sufficient evidence that some expectation existed (universal or not) that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem - the interpretation that Micah cannot be referring to the town is tendentious and unsupportable. The association of the Bethlehem-Ephratha conjuction as a place is well established in the Tanakh.

07-18-2011, 08:50 AM	#24
Juststeve Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Dallas Texas Posts: 758	Both Luke and Matthew provide us will far fetched accounts of how Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem in spite of the fact that he was reputed to be of Nazareth. I think that is in itself enough to strongly suggest that at least Matthew and Luke were writing for audiences that expected the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem, an easy mistake to make if you were reading Hebrew Scripture in Greek instead of Hebrew. What the less Hellenized Jews were thinking at precisely the time the Gospels were written is not so easy to know. Steve

07-18-2011, 12:29 PM	#28
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	In the New Testament, for one thing. In Micah for another.

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