Retired Boards (Archived)
Incarnation
Posted by: jayceeii
« on: February 04, 2020, 11:03:55 AM »ce: Yesterday I had an Interesting discussion with a jewish friend of mine and he told me that Jesus couldn't have been The Messiah because he didnt fulfill the messianic prophecies:
jc: My take on this is that the Lord is not a messiah, which is to say someone from among the people to unite them. This has been a powerful myth in several religions, that a man will come to whom all will listen and bow, but there can’t really be such a man ever. You might say the idea of a messiah is an image of the expectation of humans that God can hear each one of them without conflict, although as they face each other there is always conflict. Each man thinks God will justify him against his neighbors, but such an entity can’t exist when the neighbors don’t agree on their own. You could say it’s a horribly twisted God facing every direction, and the myth of a messiah is that this can be unified.
ce: The Messiah is supposed to accomplish :
A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
jc: This seems to be seriously primitive, in an era when human machines are putting up thousands of new buildings every day. With two billion Christians, averaging 100 per congregation, that’s twenty million preachers and twenty million churches. And according to this line they’re all talking about a single temple being built somewhere! You can understand from Ezekiel’s perspective, he was only thinking about one temple in his local region. This is the weirdness when you overinterpret poetry from ancient days.
ce: B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
jc: Again, this is seriously primitive, but it’s also a tremendous fault running throughout the Old Testament, portraying God as a racist who would honor birth instead of virtue. The Christians are comfortable with ideas their God will favor one race over another, and so they are all secretly racists, remaking God in their own faulty image. Such bad ideas should have fallen away long ago, but they’re perpetuated because men don’t seek God.
ce: C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
jc: That’s reading far too much into Isaiah’s paltry line. Considering his line first, one has to understand virtually every nation maintains an army, so that to put a stop to all this is going to require some serious firepower on God’s part, whatever will occur at Judgment. The big trouble of preparing for war is not in the war itself, but in the dreadful cost to the resources future generations might’ve used for tractors, squandered in man’s petty drama.
God cannot end hatred. As one of the few memorable lines from the Bible put it, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. To stop hatred would require transforming men, and while humans think this should be easy for an omnipotent God, it is not the case. Men can be raised to toleration. If the meek inherit the Earth, there will be less hatred. From my perspective I’d want to know if someone saying, “God will end hatred,” has really ended hatred in his or her mind. It isn’t enough to say, “Yes,” I’d need to see proof.
ce: D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one.
jc: This will occur, but I think it will be very slow. The God that is real can be revealed, but I think current religions have momentum, and men will cling to a God of imagination.
ce: As it says: "God will be King over all the world—on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
jc: What if the Lord doesn’t want to be king? The Lord is already the king, and He knows it. He also sees the fealty of the citizens isn’t worth much, as they have not arisen to virtue. Such lines appear in scripture because men want to rule, they want to be kings and see others bow. It has not been emphasized God prefers competent friends, to followers.
ce: The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies, so I countered that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.
jc: The Lord can laugh at prophecies, because He is real and the people should listen to Him. He knows Himself to be the Creator moving among the creatures, and if they are creatures who don’t care to know it, why would He care to be king? It isn’t even very hard for the Lord to begin explaining and demonstrating His differences from creatures, and He may bring a new message too. It’s like Jesus said, the pure in heart shall see God.
jc: My take on this is that the Lord is not a messiah, which is to say someone from among the people to unite them. This has been a powerful myth in several religions, that a man will come to whom all will listen and bow, but there can’t really be such a man ever. You might say the idea of a messiah is an image of the expectation of humans that God can hear each one of them without conflict, although as they face each other there is always conflict. Each man thinks God will justify him against his neighbors, but such an entity can’t exist when the neighbors don’t agree on their own. You could say it’s a horribly twisted God facing every direction, and the myth of a messiah is that this can be unified.
ce: The Messiah is supposed to accomplish :
A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
jc: This seems to be seriously primitive, in an era when human machines are putting up thousands of new buildings every day. With two billion Christians, averaging 100 per congregation, that’s twenty million preachers and twenty million churches. And according to this line they’re all talking about a single temple being built somewhere! You can understand from Ezekiel’s perspective, he was only thinking about one temple in his local region. This is the weirdness when you overinterpret poetry from ancient days.
ce: B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
jc: Again, this is seriously primitive, but it’s also a tremendous fault running throughout the Old Testament, portraying God as a racist who would honor birth instead of virtue. The Christians are comfortable with ideas their God will favor one race over another, and so they are all secretly racists, remaking God in their own faulty image. Such bad ideas should have fallen away long ago, but they’re perpetuated because men don’t seek God.
ce: C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
jc: That’s reading far too much into Isaiah’s paltry line. Considering his line first, one has to understand virtually every nation maintains an army, so that to put a stop to all this is going to require some serious firepower on God’s part, whatever will occur at Judgment. The big trouble of preparing for war is not in the war itself, but in the dreadful cost to the resources future generations might’ve used for tractors, squandered in man’s petty drama.
God cannot end hatred. As one of the few memorable lines from the Bible put it, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. To stop hatred would require transforming men, and while humans think this should be easy for an omnipotent God, it is not the case. Men can be raised to toleration. If the meek inherit the Earth, there will be less hatred. From my perspective I’d want to know if someone saying, “God will end hatred,” has really ended hatred in his or her mind. It isn’t enough to say, “Yes,” I’d need to see proof.
ce: D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one.
jc: This will occur, but I think it will be very slow. The God that is real can be revealed, but I think current religions have momentum, and men will cling to a God of imagination.
ce: As it says: "God will be King over all the world—on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
jc: What if the Lord doesn’t want to be king? The Lord is already the king, and He knows it. He also sees the fealty of the citizens isn’t worth much, as they have not arisen to virtue. Such lines appear in scripture because men want to rule, they want to be kings and see others bow. It has not been emphasized God prefers competent friends, to followers.
ce: The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies, so I countered that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.
jc: The Lord can laugh at prophecies, because He is real and the people should listen to Him. He knows Himself to be the Creator moving among the creatures, and if they are creatures who don’t care to know it, why would He care to be king? It isn’t even very hard for the Lord to begin explaining and demonstrating His differences from creatures, and He may bring a new message too. It’s like Jesus said, the pure in heart shall see God.
Posted by: Dogbyte
« on: December 06, 2016, 09:36:45 AM »Yesterday I had an Interesting discussion with a jewish friend of mine and he told me that Jesus couldn't have been The Messiah because he didnt fulfill the messianic prophecies:
The Messiah is supposed to accomplish :
A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world—on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies, so I countered that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.
What do you think about this ?
I would suggest a study on the types of covenants you find in the OT, unilateral and bilateral. In my opinion, if you enumerate all the promises and then note whether or not they are one sided, or contingent upon a person or people, then you can form a better understanding of what happened to unfulfilled Messianic prophesies. In fact, I would say that there are very few unilateral promises given in the OT (like to Abraham), most of them are two-sided (ie... people of Israel...if/then). In my experience, be careful when talking about the bilateral covenants with most protestants or jews, its easy to get into arguments about modern day Israel and the people thereof, and that whole ball of wax. Its not a small subject or study, so its best to study up the context first instead of letting it get off topic on whether or not you are bashing modern day Israel, which is not what you want to convey.
Posted by: Gordon Tubbs
« on: November 23, 2016, 09:45:59 PM »I'm aware of the Tanakh (I own and read one). Some of the Jewish counter-apologetics I've come across specifically use the OT for more credibility against Christians ("see! even your own text denies Jesus is the Messiah" type stuff). But that's a moot point. The irony is that modern Judaism is basically Christianity without Jesus. Jews believe that they are saved through faith, that despite their inability to make sacrifices at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (because there is no Temple), other forms of sacrifice are offered instead (prayers, offerings, feasts, etc.).
One might suspect, that if God is all knowing and knew the Temple would be destroyed, that he would prepare his Chosen People by giving them a new prophet to follow (as God had consistently done with 48 prophets and 7 prophetesses through history), because that's what God does. Theologically, prophets read and interpret scripture for their generation and proclaim God's word and provide direction for God's people. If one can build a sufficient case that Jesus Christ was a legitimate Prophet, then one must accept Christ's interpretation of the scriptures and his own prophecies for God's people living in his time period. These interpretations paint Jesus as the Messiah, and the Kingdom of Heaven as the "state" of Israel.
I'm not trying to convince you of the fact, rather just provide an anecdotal Christian response to Jewish counter-apologetics.
One might suspect, that if God is all knowing and knew the Temple would be destroyed, that he would prepare his Chosen People by giving them a new prophet to follow (as God had consistently done with 48 prophets and 7 prophetesses through history), because that's what God does. Theologically, prophets read and interpret scripture for their generation and proclaim God's word and provide direction for God's people. If one can build a sufficient case that Jesus Christ was a legitimate Prophet, then one must accept Christ's interpretation of the scriptures and his own prophecies for God's people living in his time period. These interpretations paint Jesus as the Messiah, and the Kingdom of Heaven as the "state" of Israel.
I'm not trying to convince you of the fact, rather just provide an anecdotal Christian response to Jewish counter-apologetics.
Posted by: Atheist in Louisiana
« on: November 23, 2016, 05:23:24 PM »Jews use the Tanakh, not the OT. A minor quibble since they are basically copies of each other.
They use that book to show that Jesus didn't fulfill the prophecies, so isn't their messiah. They aren't dispensing with any law. They are not accepting the additions Christianity introduced to their religion. It's their religion. Someone else claiming that their religion was fulfilled by this guy named Jesus doesn't mean they have to accept it.
They use that book to show that Jesus didn't fulfill the prophecies, so isn't their messiah. They aren't dispensing with any law. They are not accepting the additions Christianity introduced to their religion. It's their religion. Someone else claiming that their religion was fulfilled by this guy named Jesus doesn't mean they have to accept it.
Posted by: Gordon Tubbs
« on: November 23, 2016, 03:45:38 PM »The real irony is that Jews will use the Old Testament to deny Jesus as the Messiah, but this is the same Old Testament that requires them to build a Temple... to have a priesthood... to perform sacrifices and keep all ordinances set forth in the Torah. Under whose authority are they dispensing with the Law?
Posted by: Nefalim
« on: October 29, 2016, 12:50:39 AM »This is an argument that non-Messianic Jews use. The general response is explaining the "valleys of prophecy". The prophets saw the mountain tops of the first and second coming and missed the valley of the Church Age. Not really my favorite, but it is at least possible.
Hosea 2:23 seems to describe the situation in which we find ourselves here in the Church Age.
I came across an interesting viewpoint while listening to a conservative podcast. The man is Orthodox Jewish and described a belief some hold to that asserts the Messiah came secretly in 1948, or a little before and established the revived state of Israel. I never heard that one and found it interesting. I also find it absurd, but interesting.
Some people have better responses, but this has been the response I have seen offered to the Jewish argument concerning the Messiah not having a Second Coming.
Hosea 2:23 seems to describe the situation in which we find ourselves here in the Church Age.
I came across an interesting viewpoint while listening to a conservative podcast. The man is Orthodox Jewish and described a belief some hold to that asserts the Messiah came secretly in 1948, or a little before and established the revived state of Israel. I never heard that one and found it interesting. I also find it absurd, but interesting.
Some people have better responses, but this has been the response I have seen offered to the Jewish argument concerning the Messiah not having a Second Coming.
Posted by: Christine
« on: December 13, 2015, 04:54:01 AM »Yesterday I had an Interesting discussion with a jewish friend of mine and he told me that Jesus couldn't have been The Messiah because he didnt fulfill the messianic prophecies:
The Messiah is supposed to accomplish :
A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world—on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies, so I countered that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.
What do you think about this ?
The Messiah is supposed to accomplish :
A. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world—on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
The historical fact is that Jesus fulfilled none of these messianic prophecies, so I countered that Jesus will fulfill these in the Second Coming, but Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright, and no concept of a second coming exists.
What do you think about this ?