Metacrock

Meta =>o yea that's not insulting! Being part of an "ilk" is almost never good. That's obviosuly the result of having poisoned the well. He dosen't care about the facts or about the ideas, he's just waging cultural warefare. Well he has an ilk too, he and Tovia and Singer and all the legalists who can't listen and don't care about the facts. to them "truth" is just propaganda and all that matters is that you hear their propaganda. And he's done the same kind of thing to people like Holding and Miller and anyone else who says anything he doesn't agree with. IT has yet to dawn on him that I am a liberal and liberals are not apologists and liberals are not in the Holding /Miller camp. That doesn't make any difference, all he cares is that you hear his propaganda.

He's upset about a "they." "They are doing this" we have to watch out for "them." Anytime someone is on a crusade against "them," scholarhsip is out the window. Ok Ok I'm doing it too, AAAAAaaaa


Meta =>No, that is an ideolgoical line. Firsrt, many Rabbis did become Christians. A Whole wing of Judism became Christian, that's why the heterdox vanished and only the pharisees remained after 70 to become the Talmudists. All the Jews there are today, except the Karaites, who are not accepted as real Jews by the others, are decended from the pharisees, and this is the reason; because the once diverse factions all disappeared after 70. They did so for two reasons: 1) killed by the Romans, 2) became Christian. So that includes lots of Rabbis, such as Paul (who was a pharisee because many of them converted too). So this is a false statement that "the Rabbis didn't see it as Jesus." Some did and still do.

moreover, the idea that Jesus didn't do all the things messiah is suppossed to do is a fallacy. There is no specific set of verses in the OT that says "this is everything the Messiah will do." one of the expectations in Jesus day was that he would come, be rejected by his people, disappear (some even said be imprisoined or killed--although that applies more to the Joseph Messiah but I content that began as the same Messiah) and come back then rebuild the temple. Since he will rebuild it at the end of the world, and the world hasn't ended yet, then he can't do that yet. But there are others ways to tell Messiah. It's just that the phraisee faction decided that they could drop the stuff about being rejected and just harp on the end stuff because that way it couldn't be Jesus. So that's how the line changed and then they covered up the change.


Meta =>Jesus did bring redeemption to the world. Nowhere in the OT does it say that Messiah has to rebuild the temple before you know its him! He does that last because it's at the end of the world! It ant the end yet so he can't have done it yet!


Meta =>1) poison the well; anything from Holding and Miller have to be ignored no matter what it says or who its quoting just because Holidng and Miller disagree with is ideology. They are good, they not real professinoal scholars but for amatures they are pretty good. They certainly know more than he does. They make mistakes, I see their mistakes form time to time, but they quote good sources. Now he hasn't said anyhting that I not aware of or have not aruged with Tovias boys many times before. I have argued with Singer-trianed anti-missionaires man times, and i've been having this argument for years now. I've never seen them fail to use these tacticks. IT's as certain that they will play the "supiriority of Hebrew" card as surely as Ferrell Till will play the personal shame card. But that is not scholarship and it has nothing to do with the issues.
this is nothing more than ad hom!


Meta =>No its not! Most Rabbis dont' have a disppassionate or disinterested stake in this argument either. So just saying that he had personal beliefs is not an argument. IT is in fact his little ideolgoical reason to hate Edersheim. He thinks of Edersheim as a traitor so he doesn't value anything he says. But I happen to know personally the decendent of Edersheim. He was a great guy, he worked for the poor in a little stone house where he took in homless people and ruined his health and died because of his work for the poor. He was trained as a Rabbi, he was a linguistic genius and he knew his stuff. The reason he isn't used today is becasue scholarship never lasts as a source. Historians tday dont' quote Gibbon, they dont' quote anyone fomr the 19th century. No one has bothered to re do Edersehim's list becasue it was so good but it was done a long time ago.

The main shcolarly reason that it isn't used is becasue there is a problem with usuing the Talmud as evidence of pre-Christian sources. The Talmud was complied over the centuries after Christ and the earliest stuff is from the second century AD. But Jews assert that it is based upon older sources (some of it is) and that it does represent a tradition that goes back before the time of Christ. Edersheim himself was aware of the problem and he argued that the second and third century material represtened traditions that were popular among the people in the first century and in the first century before Christ. I've aruged with anti-missionaires who actually tried to to calim that all the stuff in the Talmud represents the way Jews thought and understood things going back to Moses! that is absurd but that's what he claimed (not that it was written then but that the ideas in it go back that far).


Meta =>what Apokrius can't seem to get through his head is that Edersheim is quoting from the Talmud. that hasn't changed. The Talmud said that Is 7;14 was about the Messiah long before Edersheim was born, and it still says it. I've looked up some of the passages on his list in English translations and it does say that. I've asked Rabbis living today and they agree that it says it. I've asked Yeshiva students and they argree that it says. And Apokrius has not bothered to even look up the passage so he doesn't know! He's just pulling the ad hom card, this is guy was not of his "ilk" so he's no good.


Meta=> I know the Talmud is vast. AT my school they have an English translation with all the volume in a row on the shelf, it's very very huge. But that's not proof of anything. You must show me a passage that contradicts what Edersheim is quoting, but even then that wont prove anything. Becasue the stuff at Qumran proves that the basic expecation of some of the Jews was what the early chruch came up with. that means they did not invent their own hermeneutic and they didn't just read in the prophesies they wanted, those were already expectations and Apokrius has done nothing to disprove that. All he's done so far is make ad hom arguments against my sources, he has not refuted the evidence.


Meta => Of course they deny it because they aren't Christians! that's not relivant. I am not saying that this proves that Jesus is the Messiah why can you not see that? It'm saying that it proves that they weren't stupid to have hte hermeneutic they had! they got it from the Jews, they just applied it to their own guy. But they took the stuff that their community said was about Messiah. They just happened to think that this one guy fit the bill. That's a matter of oinion. But the Jews changed their line on what the Messiah would do to move away from those claims once Christianity got going, that's why they adopted a new translation of the Greek OT.

So that also means that Rabbis have been saying for centuries that Is 7 is about Messiah but they dont' think its about Jesus because they don't see that as a support for proving who Messiah is.They dont' see that as a way to tell. They just repeat what's been said in the past. They only look at the re-written line on what Messiah will do and they never bother to connect the two, the passages like Is 7 and the list of thins Messiah will do so you know who he is. They also reduced that list to one thing at the end of world so there couldn't be any link to Jesus.



Meta =>Not a conspiracy, but a reaction. That is as much a reaction to what they saw as a threat to their way of life, as much as the Christians were reacting to their emergency ie what happened to their leader. Its' really the same kind of response. This means that the Christian hermeneutic is no dumber than the Jewish one. They are really still much alike.


Meta =>Now that represents a totally naive view of mythology. Mythology is not just a little explaination about facts in nature. It's a means of encoding ancinet wisdom about dealing with life. Princeton Sumeriologist Tikva Frymere-Kensky, who happens to be Jewish btw, in her book IN the Wake of the Godesses says that the story of Eve is about the bringing of civilization. It is not about why we fear snakes. No I didn't say "O it couldn't be anything else." Obviously it could be and this just shows that Apok is not arguing with me at all, he's arguing with other christians and other "apologists" that he's argued with before and he's expecting me to fit their views and to say what they say. He's not listening to my views, he's arguing with past opponents. I didn't say that it couldn'tbe anything else, I said that it is a possilbe alternative source to the V birth.

btw The V brith doesnt' even have to be a fulfillment of prophesy it could just be a miracle in its own right.


Meta => So now we have Lubie protestants!


MEta =>Its been done


MEta =>Hey I never said that there aren't problematic neuonses with this stuff.


Meta =>what that shows us is that any study of Christian origins requires a serious discussion by someone who cares about the facts and who is not merely seeking to impose an ideolgoical program or propaganda line. That means that this "discussion" is a complete waste of time as is talking to Apok who has not the abiltity to understand the difference.


MEta =>If the Europeans of the middel ages had treated Jews right none of this cutural imeperialism would be an issue. You hate christians because you were taught to hate us by those who felt they had justifiable reasons for hating them. Maybe they did, but that's no secret why there can't peace in the middle east. Becasue you can never end a cycle of hatred and prejudice by aruging about the justice of doing it back to those who did it to you. Sheerson wasn't Messiah, Jesus was. that's the only problem there, but you think this becasue you have been taught to hate and to conduct this hermeneutics of suspicion.

Meta =>I know some Yidish jokes want to hear them?


Meta => That's all very interesting but its just argument from analogy. You can't prove anything about the development of Christianity by looking at other groups.



MEta =>So that means they must be pretty bad guys hu? But my friend Rabbi is not a Messianic. He is in an Orthodox Jewish community where he works as their Rabbi. He does get a lot of abuse and suspicion but those who know him like him.


Meta =>The holucost and centuries of antisemetism didn't help any.


Meta =>I used to be very attrackted to Judaism. That was when I was an atheist. It was more of a cultural thing. I liked the "Jewish Mofia" writters (Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Bernard Malimud, Issac Bashivus-Singer) and had some Jewish freinds and enjoyed seeing their celibrations and stuff. Arguing with the Jewish anti-missionaries has warped my persective. They are so dishonist and so berifit of any ability to think fairly. I have to go see my old Jewish freinds when I argue with them to get a fresh persepective. I can discuss with my friends without all this sort of ranker because they don't have an axe to grind. The anti-missionaries just remeind me of the Chruch of Christ guys that I grew up with. I also have a Jewish relative. He married into the family, but his faith and ethnicity are not an issue, he was welcomed with open arms completely. (my sister goes "do you think he's decided form anyone famous in the Bible?" Duh, Try Abraham! she's a fundie, got to make allowences).

You seem not to be able to understand that there is an ideology form culture. You have been raised in a certain culture and you have that ideology because it is part of your cultural baggage. I have the same problem. So you take your cultural ideology as a given, as the proper way to understand the world, and you see other cultures as lyers and cheaters and those who are subverting your culture. I mean you see my culture in that way, not all cultures obviously, but thsi one because it somehow crosses paths with yours.


Meta =>No it doesn't. That last statment just proves why you aren't looking at the hermeneutics but merely repeating the propaganda lines. The early Chrsitains were Jews, it makes all kinds of sense that they would base their view of Jesus upon expectations and hermeneutics already working in the Jewish community. We can see the changes in history. Before the middle ages there's only one example anywhere of Is 53 SS being seen as Israel. After Rashi Rabbis are saying "but that's not what your teachers said" but by the 19th century its a standard line. So they just grduaully got the idea "we can divorce ourselves from Christianity by chaning the line on who Messiah and what he does."


MEta=>Argument form patriotism, an appeal to emotion and tradition. I can see why you don't like the idea that the early chruch may have had true insights about the Messiah. I can see why you would see Edersheim as a traitor and why you would feel that Christain apologists are cultural imeperialists. But none of that proves your take on the hermeneutics of the early chruch, it just gives you a motive to reject out of hand anything they say.

Meta =>I can understand that. But why would you think that I don't have similar associations to my group or that I am not moved in similar way by the history of my heritage? So that when someone comes along and says "your guys are just stupid and they have no reason for their bleiefs" why would you think that would not be insulting for me?none of that proves anything about how the early chruch did hermeneutics or why they chose what they chose!

you can talk about how the guys worked to preserve the faith and the culture ect ect. but that has nothing to do with the issue, but it tells me that you aren't willing to listen to the arguments. You are responding to what you see as cultural imperialism and then dressing that up in scholarly garb. The early Christians were Jews, they had the same tneder feelings of attachement to the past, the tradiition, the guys who suffered for the law and the Torah that you can muster. For them it was not the Chrsitains but the Romans who were the cultural imperialists and they connected resistence to the Romans to their feelings for their faith. And that means that they would surely be working out of a set of assumptions given them by their culutre and assumptions that were already in their community. Those assumptions conditioned their hermeneutic, that is just the only way it could be really. To try and deny that and argue that they just as a matter of arbitrary course through up a bunch of verses with no ryhme or reason is absurd.

But that same patriotic reading of your tradition also blinds you to the fact that your tradition evovles and it was not always as it is today. It was more diverse and had warring factions and those factions callapsed when the devistating war against the Romans in 70 was lost. Christians became the aline other at that time! the hostility really goes back to that point. You can't recognized the expectations because they changed over time.


Meta ->But somehow you think that prejudice can't color your reading?


Meta =>My friend Rabbi remains within the Orthodox Jewish community. Technically there is no law that says a Jew can't decide or believe or suspect that any partiuclar person is the Messiah. But's clear why the Messianics are not liked I think you are right about that.



Meta =>So they are sincere but they are a cancer. Come on man, I presume you had to do some coming to terms with your background to think of yourself as an atheist. So why can't you allow other people to do that same kind of thing in their own search? And why can't you see how all of this would color your reading? I know that my own background colors my reading, it looks to me like you can't see that for yourself.

Metacrock

Apok speaking of the Lubies says:

"quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some say that he will be resurrected and complete his mission, and cite rabbinic texts which support the notion of a dying and resurrected messiah."


Meta=>why would they even say that if there is no hermeneutical basis for resurrection in Judaism? Now I know there is no pint blank verse in the Tenoch or Torah that says "Messiah will be raised from the dead." But apparently the same kind of thinking that led the Christians to think that Jesus' res. fulfilled something can be rediscovered by other Jews, and apparently have been. That just indicates that perhaps the early churd was working from preconcieved notions they got from Judism. In fact Edersheim argues this and he produces Talmudic passages to back it up; Speicifically that the Messiah would riase up all of Israel, that he is the "lord of life" as Jesus is called in the NT and so his own res is the "firts fruits."

Also I appreicate the tone toward the end of the last post I answered from you. Let's try to stick with that tone and discuss frankly and in good will. If you feel that I started the hostile tone I apoloigize. But I assure you that I was responding to what I felt was hostile tone. That's always the way it is, no one ever starts it. So i'm apologizing and hopefully we can just go on in this frank but well intended vein.

Metacrock

Apok argues that unless Jesus' rebuilt the Temple he can't be Messiah. That's a standard anti-missionary line, but it's also a stanard point of Jewish doctrine today. However, it was not always the only expectation.

Now as you read this please keep in mind that I wrote this. YEa it is cut and pasted, from my own website. I originally dug all this up in books, it tooks moths. I wokred with the actual copy of Edersheim which I inherited from my former brother-in-law in my sister's divorce, it had nothing to do with Glenn Miller. I did this before I knew who Miller was (but of course augmented it with Miller stuff latter). So this is my own research, it is research it is not "cut and paste." It is cut and pasted, but why should I hav to write it anew everytime?


II.The Issue on time line and eschatlogical verification


Jewish anit-missionaires say that the "official" claims of Judaism matter more than do other fulfillments of prophecy which Christians point out. when Christians argue that Is.53 predicts crucifiction, ressurection, ect. the Jewish apologist will simply say "that doesn't matter, if Jesus didn't bring in the Messianich Kingdom, unite all Jews, bring them form dispursion, create world peace, rebuild the temple, and do all the other things prophesied of the Messianic age, than he can't be the Messiah." In other words, they argue that Jewish expectation is and always has been focussed only on the end of times, and nothing else matters. But this is not the case. It is alleged that fulfillments such as son of David, ect. only qualify him to be Messiah, only fulfilling all of the propheicies can prove that he is.

I made an argument that I never saw an answer to. That there are no "official" signs. Bringing in the Kingdom of the Messiah is not a "sign to watch for." In fact, in all the literature I read on the Messiah, which is now considerable, I have yet to see anyone offering criteria, in Rabbonate, or in OT as to "this is how we know it's really him." That seems in fact irrelivant because when the Kingdom comes we will know it, and the Messiah will be obvious, (he will be the one who outshines the Son standing on top of the temple shouting "Your time of diliverance is at hand"). But that's not a sing to watch for, that's the thing itself. In fact there are no signs, and the Rabbinical lit I have seen says the signs to look for (of those who look--some say not to look) are signs of the coming of the age, or the end of the age and coming of Messiah's kingdom not sings of the man himself as though he will be pulled out of a police line up or something.



A. distinguish between Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Messiah



How does this affect the argument? First, distingusih between the Kingdom of God (the one Jesus' said is "in your midst") and the "day ofMessiah, Kingdom of Messiah, age of Messiah, ect. These are two different things. The kingdom of God is absract, it is going on all the time, it is spritual reality.



"This 'kingdom of heaven' of 'of God' must be tinguished form such terms as t'the kingdom of Messiah'...'future age'...world of Messiah." "days of Messiah' 'age to come' ect...This is all the more important since the Kingdom of heaven has so often been confounded witht he period of its triumphant manifestation in 'the days' or 'the kingdom of the messiah.' Between the advent [of Messiah] and the final manifestation fo the 'the kingdom,' Jewish expectancy palced a temporary obsuration of the Messiah...." Edersheim, p267 [Yalkut vol iip75d and Midrash on Ruth ii14) Yalkut = Yalkut Shemedni Catena on OT



In some sense Jesus brought in the Kingdom of God, realized eschatology, but not the Messianic kingdom. This is what he means when he says "the Kingdom of God is within you" or "in your midst." That will come with his second advent.



B. First century Jews expected Messiah to come, go away, return



So in other words, the Jews of Jesus' day, and shortly thereafter understood that the Messiah would be born, be secret and hidden not understood by his contemporaries and then come in a powerful way whenhe brings in the kingdom of Messiah. But he would already manifest the kingdom of God, which is in our midst. And that was really the message of Jesus. Over and over he says, not "i will die for your sins" but "the Kingdom of God is near," "the Kingdom of God is coming." So his message involves a realized eschatology about the kingdom of God, and the coming of the next age at a future date. Which is just what the Jews of his day understood.


"Suffice it to say, according to the general opinion, the birth of the Messiah would be unknown to his contemporaries, that he would appear, carry on his work, than disappear--probably for 45 days, than appear again and destroy the hostile powers of the world..." (Edershiem, 436, Yalkut on Is. vol ii, )



"[Messiah]...his birth is connnected with the destruction, [of temple] and his Return with the restoration of the temple" (on Lamintations i.16 WArsh p 64 in Edersheim "He might be there and be known or the might come and be again hidden for a time" comp Sanhedirin 97a Midrash on CAnt.



"Even in the Damascus document, there is some indication in the first colum of the Cairo recennsion that the Messianic "root of Planting out of Aaron and Israel" has already come. The 'arising' or 'standing up' can be looked upon as well, something in the nature of a Messianich return..."(quote finnished above on ressurrection).(18)



1) Messiah's advent connected with destruction of the temple, return with rebuilding:


The Targum applies Is. 10:27 destruction of gentiles before Messiah 10:34 quoted in the Midrash on Lam i.16 "in evidence that somehow the birth of the Messiah was to be connected with the destruction of the temple." Edershiem sites the Targim and the Talmud on the whole of chapter 11. He says the rebuilding of temple associated with Mesisahs "return!"


Of course thse sources were written after the desction, which makes it all the more puzzaling how they could say that.



2) Jesus birth connected with temple destruction in several ways.

a) Star prophecy connected to Jewish revolt that triggered destruction.



"The first Century Jewish Historian Josephus, an eye witness identifies the world ruler prophecy as the moving force behind the Jewish revolt against Rome in AD 66-70 (War, 6.317). Roman wirtters dependent upon him like Suetonius and Tacitus do likewise."



b) The Messianic Claims of the Christians may have fuled the fire


c) Temple period transitional



form a Spiritual or theological view point the tempel period remianing after the birth of Christ might be seen as a transitional period and the descturction of the temple a closure to the Moseic sacraficial system due to the advent of the Messiah and the New Covenant.

In anycase this notion indicates that Jewish expectations were such that a Messianich advent, disappearnce and return were to be expected.






C. Gap between Advent and return (Messiah unrecognized)


The age between advent (birth) and triumph of Kingdom of M. was of indeterminant length and would include sufferings of Messiah and Israel. It is the Messianic age. "According to the general opinion the birth of the Messiah would be unkown to his contemporaries" he appears, "carry on his work and then dissapear=for 45 days reappaer and destory the hostile powers of the world... Israel would now be gathered form the ends of the earth" Edersheim 436 [Yalkut on Isah. vol 2] Yalkut also speaks of the Messiah put under an iron yoke and imprisioned for the sins of the poeple and it uses the same languae of psalm 22 about mouth cleves to the roof and strength dried up like postherd [discussion TAlmud Sanhedrin ). yalkut iip66 shows Messiah imprisioned and mocked by nations (see also psalm 22).





1. Messiah to be rejected and suffers, dies, before Kingdom comes


As Edersheim demonstrates the Messiah was expected to suffer, and at one point even to die, before the establishment of the Messianich Kingdom. Actually, the Qumran sect believed in two Messiahs, the Davidic and a Preistly son of Joseph. This view was revived again in the third century and was held by Rabbis in that erra at least to the middle ages. Edersheim documents (434-35) it was the Joseph Messiah who would be killed in the Gog/Mog war, and some also expected the Davidic Messiah to suffer as well. Even though these are only the opinions of some rabbis and not the law of the Talmud it is still significant that rabbis actually held views different than modern anti-missionaires and views which coroborate in part the Chrstian-Messianich time line, that the Messiah would suffer and die and some interval would seperate the Messiah's appearance form the coming of the kingdom.



a) Two Messiah's Issue crucial

The evidence Edersheim offers for the death of the Messiah is spoken of the Preistly Messiah, the Son of Joseph. Also some rabbis the mentions also saw suffering for the Davic Messiah. The Preistly Messiah would be killed by the "nations" and the Davidic would take revenge by brining on Armagadon and then usher in the Kingdom of the Messiah. (434).



b) Single Messiah theory may have been more important at Qumran


Edersheim believed that the Talmudic rabbis (second century on) made up the two Messiah notion, since Qumran had not yet been discovered. Allegro and others demonstrate that Qumranian phrasology such as "the Messiah of Aaron and Israel" refur to two Messiahs, one preistly, the other Davidic and war like. But Eisenman and Wise demonstrate that these two are actually melded into one in much Qumran literature, as they were in the early Chrsitian movement.


"Even in the published corpus there is a wide swath of materlias, particularly in the Biblical commentaries on Isaiah, Zechariah, Pslams, and the Messianic compendium proof texts that relate to a single Davidic style Messiah..." (18).



What does all this mean? Two things:

a1) All the passages that latter Rabbis identify as Preistly Messiah could be collapsed into a single Messiah Model.

a2) that the rabbi's interprit Messianic death as Preistly but these same passages could be applied to the single Messiah.



c) Possible exicution of Messiah fortold by Qumran sect.


The passages that Eiseman and Wise brought out which, though hotly debated, could imply death of Messiah at Qumran indicate Messiah exicuted.
"A staff shall rise form the root of Jesse, [and a planting form his roots will bear fruit] (3) ...the Branch of David...They will enter into judgement with...(4) and they will put to death the leader of the community, the Branch of David..(this might also read depending on the context 'and the leader of the community the Branch of David will put him to death..') (p. 29).



Eisenman and Wise argue, however, that their reading is better, although they admitt to the possibility of error. "Here the key question is wheather fragment 7 comes before or after fragment and could be 'the one put to death.' If before, than it is possible that the Messianic leader does the putting to death, mentioned in the text, though such a conclusion flies in the face of the logic of the appositivites like the ..."Branch of David" grouped after the expression the Nasi-ha 'Edah.' which would be clumsy even in Hebrew. f(4Q285)

2. Differing views of time line and Messiah (s)


The probelm is there are several things at veriance here. Edersheim's hypothosis is not that Jesus was exctly as the Jews pictured the Messiah. Rather, he argues the opposite! He was not what they expected, and they got many things wrong. But he does agree with and fulfill myriad prophecies which are pointed out. The problem is the understanding of the time line, and the distiction between the two Messiahs. There was a preistly Messiah and a Dividic Messiah. Even the Talmudic Rabbis broght out the notion of the two Messiahs from the pre-Chrsitian era of groups like those at Qumran. Edershiem, writting without benifit of disovery of DSS, argues that they made up the Joseph Messiah to take suffering off Davic, (Jesus). But we know now they had two at Qumran. It is the Joeph Messiah who suffers, also though authories see suffering for the Davic Messiah as well. fn2 p434


3. Rabbi's differed on length of gap between advent and kingdom


The earliest TAlmudic references to two Messiahs dates to 3d cnetury, identitfys him as the one they will look upon and mourn, the one they peirced (!) in Zechariah.
The time line is in disagreement between Rabbinical sources. Some view the Messianch age as lasting 2000 years, some much longer, some see the suffering as only 45 days. There are long discussions on the terrors of the Messianich age, famine, rebellion, war, and in the Sybline Oracles it is a Golden Age. So there is much divergence on how all of this plays out.



It is too simplistic to just say "well, did jesus bring in the age of peace and gather all of Israel?" It's not as though we are just walking around minding our own business and suddenly here's the Messiah doing those things and that's how we know it's him. The situaion is complex, some of the expecations match what Jesus did, some don't, some of the time lines would fit right in with hsitory: Jesus came, he left, time goes on, he will come back, some don't.



D. The following points are crucial:



1) The Messiah is born, unkown


2) rejected and suffering (imprionsed and suffering for sins)



3) is obscured for a time



5) then comes back.







That outline could include what happened with Jesus as Messiah, or it could be preserved in skelital form but rule out the history form Jesus to present, it just depends upon which authorities one listens to.



Now, the major argument: There are no "offical sings." the events you point to are manifestly not the only events one could point to as indicative of Messiah, and they are not signs to show one who Messiah is! They are future events, not helpful hints to know Messiah. It is illogicl to claim that he has to fulfill these things (coming of Messianic Kingdom) and Only those things. Because no where are these events listed as a means to understand who he is. The age is given signs to know it's comming, no MEssiah himself.





E.The verses that show fulfillments are just as valid as 'proof' because:


1) They are prophesies and they are fulfilled and that's the only clue we are ever given. Is. 53 shows exactly what Jesus was to do, and Ps 22, Zech. 4-8 ect. Jer. 23. Those fulfillments are just as valid for understanding the Messiah as the ones you always sight, because no verse says which verses are the key.



2) There can't be fulfillment of the end of the age until it comes, and if that's the only proof than no faith is validated until after the fact.Faith is not eschatiological verification, (you can't wait until the end of the world to believe) it has to proceed that. But the demand that he fulfill the end of the age prophocies is irrational, there was suppossed to be exactly what happend with him, born, hidden, goes away or obscured, suffers, comes back.



3) Since there is no key which says look at these verses and not at those, all we can do is look at fulfillment. and the fulfillment shows that Jesus was right with God, that he was a prophet, and that he claimed t be the "son of man." If he's true prophet than he's not lying and thus, he is the son of man.



He was a prophet:

1) led people to the God of Israel not to other gods,


2) the things he said came to pass, espcially the destruction of the temple. His own death and resurrection.



3) As a true prophet of God he could not lie, therefore, when he calls himself "The Son of Man" a Messianic designation from Daniel, we must take him at his word.

Jayhawker Soule

Metacrock,

I asked two questions concerning the Isaiah text. You respond ...

I'm sorry, Metacrock, but this is a little like watching my 2 year old granddaughter insist on being the center of attention. I was asking honest questions. I asked in the hopes of getting informed answers. The questions were neither directed at you nor answered by you. Whatever hermeneutical process you employ which requires you to be the focus of attention is rather sad. With all due respect, you can take your pompous pedantry and shove it. Or, if you choose, you can suggest answers to those subsequent questions that were, in fact, directed to you.

OK. You may well be exactly correct. Permit me, then, two sets of questions:

• You say that The Jews already expected that Messiah would have a connection of some kind to Is 7:14. Upon what is this assertion based? Furthermore, are you talking about "The Jews" in general, or some Jews and, if so, who?
• Referring to the church, you say maybe they were wrong, maybe their assumptions can't be proven, but they did not make them up! I know what you don't think, but I still don't know what you do think. Do you believe that their assumptions are correct, incorrect, or unproven?

In a prior posting you assert:

I asked about this. You reply by referencing the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, but nothing in this reply addresses the question asled. So, let me ask again: What is your evidence for asserting that:

• "They were not used of sexual state itself", and
• "This is seen in tombs of the era where wives are refurred to as Bethulah, even though were married and had children"?

Your central theme seems to be that the early Church was "no sutpider than their Rabbinical mentors!" Amen.

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Apikorus

Metacrock, will you kindly refrain from identifying me as an "antimissionary"? I am not an antimissionary. Jewish antimissionaries, such as your favorite straw man, the rabbi Tovia Singer, almost always are religious Jews who read the Hebrew Bible through the interpretive lens of the rabbis. I read the Hebrew Bible through the interpretive lens of Frank Moore Cross, P. Kyle McCarter, Moshe Weinfeld, Jeffrey Tigay, John Joseph Collins, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Baruch Levine, Carol Meyers, David Noel Freedman, Klaus Baltzer, Baruch Halpern, Mordechai Cogan, Jack Sasson, Julius Wellhausen, Yechezkel Kaufmann, et al. This results in a very different hermeneutic. You are free to waste your life battling with countermissionaries. I have bigger fish to fry.

Of course it may well be that rabbi Singer has argued similarly to me on some issues. I have never read a word of rabbi Singer's oevre so I couldn't really say. I suspect you are jumping to conclusions which cannot be rationally drawn.

The fact that you have your own website, of which you are apparently exceedingly prideful, doesn't make you a scholar, Metacrock. You claim that you "took months" to "dig up" various bits of information on Jewish messianism. I suspect that you simply follow wherever Glenn Miller leads you. (Incidentally, while Miller is not a recognized scholar, I do have a measure of respect for him. He was quite gracious during our exchange in which I corrected his essay on Daniel. I'd rank him as a cut above "educated enthusiast" status. J. P. Holding, on the other hand, I find to be thoroughly inconsequential and indeed laughable.) The Talmud is so vast, and it is so loosely organized, that unless you've devoted years and years of study to it (if you attend daf yomi classes (devoting about 90 minutes to two hours each day), you'll have made a first pass at the Talmud after seven years, Metacrock!), you've no credibility at all. So pardon me if your "months" of "research" evoke a smirk. Best for you to quote your secondary and tertiary sources and leave it at that, Metacrock. Incidentally, what English language translation of the Talmud does your seminary have in its library? Do you also read the extensive rabbinic commentaries which are printed along with the gemara?

Metacrock, I would be happy to discuss with you in a separate thread various issues in Jewish messianic thought. I agree the issue is related to the general discussion of hermeneutical soundness (and patrimony), but it is a subject in its own right, and the requisite critical apparatus for such discussions, which includes strong familiarity with the Talmud and midrash, and particularly with medieval rabbinic writings - subjects on which you have absolutely zero standing and lack even the most rudimentary language skills necessary to begin proper study (it isn't quite my cup of tea either, since my interest mainly runs up to the early rabbinic period) - is largely irrelevant to the discussions on this thread.

Apikorus

Nomad, thank you for linking to the earlier thread, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000800&p=" target="_blank">You can't tell your Messiahs without a program!</a>. My recollection was that Peter Kirby and I had argued strongly that there were three explicit messianic claimants during Roman period Palestine (from the time of Herod the Great through the end of the Second Jewish Revolt): Jesus, Simon Magus, and Simeon Bar Kokhba. Furthermore, as I explained to you (I would indeed encourage others to read through that thread), the meaning of "messiah" is rather subtle and any investigation of the issue demands a more nuanced analysis than what you had offered. (Though I understand your principal concern was simply to defend a statement made by Raymond Brown.) If one speaks of "messianic figures" rather than "explicit messianic claimants", the number increases from three to as many as a dozen (restricting our attention to the subset of historical figures for whom documentation has survived in one form or another).

Finally, I'd like to clear up what might be a misconception or possibly a deliberate misrepresentation of my position on your part. I do not recall saying that Jesus "did not fulfill any messianic prophecies". Rather, I said that Jesus is not referred to anywhere in the (plain sense of the) Hebrew Bible. There is a not-too-subtle difference between the two positions, Nomad. Indeed Jesus may have been deluded into thinking that the Hebrew Bible really was "about him", and consciously acted to "fulfill prophecy". For example, his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, recorded in Matt 21 upon a colt (...and an ass? Matthew seems to have been a victim of the inability of the LXX to properly reflect the parallelism in the Hebrew of Zech 9:9) could very possibly have been a conscious effort to "fulfill prophecy". (It may also have been simply an invention of early Christian tradents.) Does this mean that Jesus really fulfilled the prophecy? If someone else were to do it, would he be fulfilling prophecy?

As I have stated several times before (I think even in the thread which you linked), there are many reasons to regard Jesus as unique. Failure to acknowledge that would be laughable - not every historical figure has billions of adherents who regard him as divine 2000 years after his death.

Tolstoy writes at the beginning of Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I'd paraphrase Tolstoy by saying: "Genuine messiahs are all alike; every failed messiah is a failure in his own way." One of the unique aspects to Jesus' failure as a messiah is that so many people regard him as genuine! (Now there's some rabbinic thinking for you, Nomad. &lt;-- can someone give this guy a kippa?)

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

pug846

I think this might be my first post in this forum…but I have a few questions for Nomad:

I’m not sure I follow you here. Given that Jesus might have done several things listed in the OT means that he was being mentioned in those verses in the OT? Lots of people have either claimed to or have fulfilled several alleged predictions about the Messiah – are all of these people mentioned in the OT? Why should we believe that these verses relate to Jesus? I believe this is precisely the point Apikorus was making when he said:

He never claimed that Jesus didn’t believe he fulfilled several of the prophecies and he further never claimed that Jesus didn’t potentially meet at least some of the requirements to be a Messiah…Why should I believe that the OT verses were actually discussing Jesus?

I don’t see where Apikorus claimed this – could you quote it for me. Perhaps I missed it in one of his posts.

Finally, why does Apikorus have to offer who Immanuel was? Why does it matter? What leads you to reasonably conclude from the given passage, given Apikorus point that the child won’t know good or evil for a while, that Immanuel was supposed to be Jesus? Why should an objective viewer accept that interpretation? Why shouldn't we accept a position of "I don't know?"

Apikorus

pug846, apparently you cross-posted with the editing of my previous post. You independently and quite correctly identified Nomad's misrepresentation of my position. Thanks!

RyanS2

To the mod, my apologies. Nomad, you've had some very interesting things to say, if you wish to further discuss this, you can send me an e-mail. I'm afraid with MetaCrock on this forum I'm going to start saying some very nasty things to him if I don't digress here.

Photocrat

How is this different from the arguement "you're stupid because I disagree with you"?

Who was it who posted the comment "stop assuming how well-read your opponent is" over here? Not you, apparently.