lmaopml wrote: » Well, I guess you would have to do more than post a type of God that you believe Scripture presents in a tiny few quotes from a very long saga, and not take notice of the whole of revelation, and stop sourcing quotes in isolation to pick up dirt? That might help. Or indeed ignore the simple fact that your reason tells you that more often than not most people do have a sympathy, people are not entirely 'evil' or could be called so, believers or no? This is quite obvious and something you can observe? No? Actually, that makes no sense - you don't believe there is such a thing as 'evil' or 'sin' surely because of your Atheism? Yet you speak of 'evil' Christians etc. etc. and so on.. So, it's like begging the question really. So, you come to the conclusion that to be a Christian is 'evil' this sounds dreadfully like entering into runtothehills conspiracy theory territory - In other words, you claim to be an Atheist and logic is your philosophy of life, but you use this same logic to say that 'evil' exists, but only in those who claim Christianity, and not in 'my' group at all... Amazingly enough, most Christians don't think every single person is perfectly Holy, and in that knowledge find themselves humbled. Not you though - you know exactly what 'evil' is apparently, and where to find it too
philologos wrote: » If you're interested in showing us how Jesus failed to fulfil the Messianic claims, please bring something that He has failed to do to the table so we can discuss it. It seems like your goalposts are moving.
JimiTime wrote: » Read the following. Seriously. If you want enlightening, it will put an end to pretty much all your objections relating to messianic prophesy.http://www.amazon.com/Answering-Jewish-Objections-Jesus-Messianic/dp/0801064236 As for the line, 'My God, why have you forsaken me', well, check out this prophetic Psalm from King David: Thats some song to allude to wouldn't you think? As the Jewish folk looked on at what was happening, Watching Jesus, pierced through hands and feet, people insulting him, sarcastically telling him 'let God take you from this cross', casting lots for his garments etc. Yet he utters the title of a Davidian Psalm, that spoke of the very things the crowds were witnessing. And lets not forget his line, 'It is done'. Quite the parallel with the closing line of the Psalm. Its an absolutely amazing back story to the seemingly troubling line, 'My God why have you forsaken me'.
JimiTime wrote: » Sorry to just give you book recommendations, but you come across as a learned person who likes to have all the facts, but it just seems you've been reading the wrong books http://www.amazon.com/Real-Kosher-Jesus-Revealing-mysteries/dp/1621360075 Its written by a Jewish Christian.
nagirrac wrote: » There are so many reasons why Jesus could not be the messiah as prophesied in the Hebrew bible it is hard to pick from them. 1. The first and most obvious is that Judaism is a montheistic religion and did not and does not believe in the concept of the messiah being divine.
Genesis 1:2 wrote: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:26 wrote: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Isaiah 7:14 wrote: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 9:6 wrote: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
nagirrac wrote: » 2. The Hebrew scriptures say that the messiah would be descended from King David, how can Jesus be the Jewish messiah if his father was God and he was born from a virgin? Much more likely is the whole concept of a virgin birth comes from pagan beliefs and was intended to convert pagans (Romans) to Christianity.
nagirrac wrote: » 3. The messiah was supposed to return the Jews to their holy land, when Jesus was alive they were there, before they were scattered to the winds.
nagirrac wrote: » 4. The messiah was supposed to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple after its destruction, it was standing in the time Jesus was alive.
nagirrac wrote: » 5. Nowhere in the Hebrew bible is there mention of a messiah who would come, die, and come again. This is entirely a Christian idea to get around the fact that Jesus died and the Jewish prophecies were not fulfilled.
Isaiah 53:1-12 wrote: Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
nagirrac wrote: » 6. The messiah was to bring world peace and end all wars, have you checked your history since the time of Jesus?
nagirrac wrote: » If Jesus was God why did he cry out on the cross "My God, why have you foresaken me?"
nagirrac wrote: » These are not absurd claims, they are perfectly reasonable and logical claims. I have not rejected Jesus by the way, I find his teachings as expressed in the synoptic gospels very worthy, just as I find the teachings of the Buddha very worthy. What I don't find worthy are what people have claimed for him when there is no evidence he claimed it for himself (I am God for example) and what people have done in his name.
nagirrac wrote: » I appreciate your prayers phil.. but.. Conspiracy theories?? What I have stated is what people of the Jewish faith and Jewish scholars believe about their scriptures. People of the Jewish faith do not believe Jesus is the their messiah because he fails to meet what their scriptures requires of a messiah. No amount of trying to shoehorn Jesus into Jewish scripture will change those facts. When it comes to interpreting Jewish scripture I think it makes most sense to go with the Jews.
nagirrac wrote: » In my very humble opinion it is long past time for Christians to accept that their religion is quite separate from Judaism and the concept of a Jewish messiah. Jesus as described in much of the New Testament has as much or more in common with Baal, Isis and Mithras than he has with the Jewish messiah. Christianity is literally a complete break with Judaism, regardless of the fact that the historical Jesus was a Jew.
nagirrac wrote: » What's a Jewish Christian:)? One cannot be both Jewish and Christian. The author was raised Jewish and converted to Christianity in his mid teens. He is thus a Christian apostate who has a missionary zeal to convert Jews to Christianity. I'm sure he makes a good case for Christianity but then there are countless books from Jewish scholars that dismiss his view. The problem with this whole debate is there are truly few facts, just interpretation of scripture. If scripture were factual then there would be no division in beliefs between Jews and Christians, and we would not have dozens of different Christian faiths. I have a lot of sympathy for the Jewish side of the discussion, as it is their scriptures that are being interpreted by Christians to argue for Jesus as not alone being the Jewish messiah but also God, something that is blasphemous to Jews. I believe one has to try and leave aside religious bias to attempt to get at an understanding of the true historical Jesus. It is an area of study I am quite interested in but I am not that widely read. From what I have read it certainly appears that Jesus was an observant Jew who preached the Hillel school of Judaism. His philosophy seems very much in keeping with this more liberal Jewish thought, which makes it very unlikely the Jews themselves were involved in his death. It does not appear he was trying to set up a new religion, that happened after his death. To understand why or how that happened I think one has to study Christian, Jewish and Gnostic sources from the first century.
nagirrac wrote: » What's a Jewish Christian:)? One cannot be both Jewish and Christian.
Worztron wrote: » Christopher Hitchens: "Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea."
Masteroid; My reference was in response to something Tommy posted where he suggested that Bush and Chaney might simply be 'posturing' as Christians. I took this to mean they might be faking their Christianity. While I accept that evil people could pretend to be Christians in order to serve an agenda, which is what I thought Tommy was getting at, Christian are capable of just as great evil as non-Christians. The Crusades were sanctioned by a successon of popes for example, were they Christians? In fact, I would suggest that religion could be defined as 'the mechanism through which evil people are sorted into teams'. My point is that the fact that they are comfortable with bombing babies in Baghdad doesn't necessarily mean they are not Christians. And I am not claiming that this is the opinion held by Tommy, I just wondered why he would doubt a man's religion on account of his sins.
Masteroid wrote: » I think it would be more constructive to examine how the Jews themselves caused the 'prophecty' to be fulfilled.
Masteroid wrote: » There were other things that the Jews could have done to prove that Jesus was not the Messiah. For instance, they could have ignored Judas and the arrest of Jesus could have waited until after the Passover.
Masteroid wrote: » It's not as if Jesus was hiding and trying to avoid the prophecied events, is it?
Masteroid wrote: » If the Jews were anxious to discredit Jesus they could have insisted that Joseph of Aramathea left Jesus on the cross for the whole weekend.
Masteroid wrote: » Indeed, by the standards of that time, Jesus died very quickly on the cross causing Pontius Pilate to remark on the swiftness of His death. Joseph obtained special and unusual permission to recover the body of Jesus and prevented a Roman soldier from making sure that Jesus was in fact dead by breaking His legs which was the usual practice. The Jewish priests could have stopped Joseph from having any opportunity to 'choreograph' the fulfillment of the prophecy.
Masteroid wrote: » But they didn't. In fact, the behaviour of the Jews is what brought about the fulfillment.
Masteroid wrote: » It is as if the San Hedrin decided to run an experiment in which they ensure that all of their interactions with Jesus are in line with prophecy and treat Jesus as if He was in fact the Messiah.
Masteroid wrote: » Jesus does not claim to be the Son of God, it is other people, Jews, who claim He is.
Masteroid wrote: » He offers no defence during His trial which indicates that He was more interested in being crucified than trying to spread the news. Everytime He speaks in the bible, Jesus is teaching His philosophy.
Isaiah 53:7 wrote: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
Masteroid wrote: » Except at His trial where He mentions nothing about loving your neighbour as you love yourself. If He had defended Himself against the charges He would have been acquitted but He didn't.
Masteroid wrote: » The point is that the Jews behaved exactly according to scripture and would have been aware of this as they were aware of the Messiah prophecy. If they had acted slightly differently then they could have prevented the fulfillment of prophecy.
Masteroid wrote: » I find it odd then that the Jews today deny that Jesus was the Messiah since it was the Jews themselves that orchestrated the events that make it appear as if Jesus was the Messiah. In other words, the Jesus phenomenon appears to me to have been staged or 'set up' and I think that it was for the benefit of the Gentiles that it was done.
Masteroid wrote: » Why would the Jews at the time of Jesus deny that He was the Messiah whilst at the same time acting exactly in accordance with a prophecy they were aware of? I believe that the answer is that they wanted some people to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
Masteroid wrote: » Also, consider the fact that Catholicism exemps the Jews from attempts at conversion coupled with the fact that Catholicism holds that only Catholics and Jews are eligible for salvation. Catholicism itself sets itself apart from the Jews by acknowledging a special relationship between God and the Jews and that Christianity does not apply to them and nor do Christians share that special bond with God. Don't you find that a little odd?
Masteroid wrote: » Especially when you consider that the Gospel is to be preached to all the nations. I simply can't find the bit where it says 'except for Israel'.
Masteroid wrote: » It's as if the Vatican know something about the Messiah that is not written in the bible. I think that Catholicism, and Christianity, can only exist for as long as they keep that secret.
Masteroid wrote: » While Jesus' philosophy is laudible, the portrayal of Jesus in the bible is not.
Masteroid wrote: » It's there for you to see in the texts of the New Testament - The Jews went to a great deal of trouble in order to ensure the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy so why would they now deny that the prophecy was fulfilled?
philologos wrote: » Why are you assuming that Jesus couldn't be descended from David if Mary was his mother? - Please quote the specific passage you are using. If you're discussing the Bible this is helpful for others to be able to look up what you're talking about. As above, please give me a citation. I might as well quote the whole of Isaiah 53: Moreover, it is a poor argument for authority to suggest that only Jewish people have the right to interpret the Old Testament. What matters more than any "authority" is whether or not the Scriptures actually say what they want to.
Sacksian wrote: » Leaving aside the idea that someone sending their son to be killed is any huge sacrifice, if he is just going to be resurrected in a matter of days after which he goes to eternal paradise. Lots of people have made similar or larger sacrifices, and have had more agonising deaths, without the guaranteed payout. As I said above, I think you have a view of the human condition that is very bleak, which is not shared by religious or non-religious people I know. These views tend to be informed by life experiences and reading, and I suspect there are specific experiences have led you to this view, but I apologise if that's considered a personal comment. Do you believe it is possible to understand the human condition through studying the bible alone? Is the bible sufficient?
nagirrac wrote: » On the genealogy question, the Messiah must be descended from King David on his father's side, according to Jews at least. Matthew clearly and unequivically ends his genealogy with "Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born". There are major discrepencies between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, Luke does not even go through Solomon for instance, he goes through Nathan. It would be interesting to know when the idea of a lineage through Mary came in, but the serious question is why do the two genealogies not match and why do neither of them mention Mary's lineage? It seems a bit of a stretch. Ths gets to the heart of the interpretation issue. Of course Christians are entitled to interpret Jewish scripture, anyone is. The question is who is more likely to get the interpretation right. My understanding is that ancient Hebrew texts are extremely difficult to translate, let alone interpret (Hebrew has no vowels and ancient text would have had no vowel markers, so the oral reading is what adds meaning). Who is more likely to get this right, Jewish experts or non-Jewish interpretations of Greek translations? This is why I say its important to study Jewish, Christian and Gnostic sources and try and keep an open mind. I understand it is hard to do this once you have strong faith in one interpretation. If interpretation was straightforward why would there be so many interpretations of the New Testament let alone the Jewish scriptures; Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and the large number of Protestant faiths? As for citations regarding the other claims and prophecies of the messiah that are not met according to Jews, you know as well as I do that they exist and that Christians can argue their interpretation to refute them. The most serious issue by far for Jews is the divinity claim. All Jews believe that we are all sons of God, but no Jew believes that a son of God can be God. If a Jew accepts Jesus as God then he is no longer a Jew. When I speak of Jews, I mean in terms of religion and not ethnicity, as just like Christians, Jews from a religious standpoint can be any ethnicity. In my opinion it is disingenuous for Jews who have converted to Christianity to refer to themselves as Jews from a religious standpoint. All demonimations of Judaism reject Messianic Judaism as part of Judaism, to them it is Christianity. As for Isaiah 53 which you referenced, Jews would say that the suffering of the "Servant of God" is referring to the suffering of the Jewish people. They say this is entirely consistent with earlier chapters of Isaiah where the "Servant of God" is used many times to denote the people of Israel. As with everything in the bible, you can take individual passages to argue one side or the other, so the debate eventually becomes pointless. I mean no offense to Christians in any of my remarks. I am genuinely interested in the true historical Jesus. I personally regard the synoptic gospels as the most credible Christian sources for the historical Jesus as they are largely in agreement in their historical account. John and much of the rest of the New Testament to me reads like gnostic literature, a view confirmed by the contents of gnostic gospels such as the gospel of Thomas.
philologos wrote: » nagirrac: just think about your argument that you gave presented. If the suffering servant was Israel then why dies it say "by His wounds we were healed" or that He was wounded for our transgressions. If it was referring to all in Israel who is the we or the our in the passage and why is the servant singular and why does Jesus look a lot like this servant. Your argument makes no sense. Just think about what you are actually saying. By the by I've read this with an open mind.
DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: » In some ways you'd think the only joy in life these people have is bashing the religious...
philologos wrote: » nagirrac: Your argument makes no sense. Just think about what you are actually saying. By the by I've read this with an open mind.
[-0-]; Why does the bible, the true word of God, have so many contradictions? Is it because it was written by a bunch of sand farmers without any influence from a super natural being?
philologos wrote: » Either quote the Jewish scholars or make your own argument because it sounds like your shifting and changing the goalpost. If you're going to make an argument that the New Testament is anti-Semitic please present it in your own words.
MrPudding wrote: » As someone on boards, whos name escapes me, once said, "if I knew I would come back in three days I would die for my cat." MrP
nagirrac wrote: » You don't think its anti-semitic to blame the Jews for killing Jesus? The whole idea of the Jews being responsible for the death of Jesus is completely contrary to history, Jewish law and the political realities of the time. There were many messiah claims before and after Jesus and the Jews never sought to kill any of them. There is no evidence whatsoever in Jewish history of them handing anyone over to the Romans for execution. Jesus was a threat to the Romans, they crucifed thousands of Jews for the exact activities that Jesus was executed for. The whole concept that the Romans were appeasing the Jews in executing Jesus is ridiculous, given they were executing people they regarded as agitators left, right and center.
nagirrac wrote: » What is described in the New Testament in terms of the trial of Jesus by the Sanhedrin simply could not have happened, as anyone with knowledge of Jewish law and customs of the time would attest. This account could only be believed by Gentiles who were unaware of Jewish law.
nagirrac wrote: » As for specific New Testament phrases that are anti-semitic, the attached article summarised them well. The only conclusion I can come to from studying the history of the time, is that the early Christian founders shifted blame for the death of Jesus away from the Romans to the Jews, to make Christianity palatable to those they were trying to convert. How can you read John 8:39-47 where Jesus is claimed to have spoken to his fellow Jews and referred to them as "of the devil" and not regard that as anti-semitic? This rhetoric and phrases like it is what led to centuries of characterization by Christians of Jews as agents of the devil, the blood libel, etc. It is denying history to deny Christian demonization of Jews.
[-0-] wrote: » I was asked to come here to post this, so here I am: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=83694162&postcount=20
Masteroid wrote: » <snip>
Brian Shanahan wrote: » Of course this whole issue neatly sidesteps the fact that to be the Jewish messiah, i.e. the one actually promised by "god", that Jesus would have had to be a King Arthur figure, uniting his people and driving out the foreign invaders who had subjugated them.
philologos wrote: » It is historical that the Pharisees and the Sadduccees had Jesus sent to Pilate for trial. There's nothing anti-Semitic about it.
philologos wrote: » Can you quote the passage in the Tanakh please?
![Photo of [-0-]](https://w9.vanillicon.com/v2/9fe3689003eb73770da7be6d014ea6d5.svg)
