Questions about the Bible , I ask as I read

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by CyberShy


Technically it's even protestantism that brought us the enlightement.

Those nations that are historically protestant nations are most enlightent. I say that with a humble mind,

Uh, right, because you're a Protestant. The definition of humility does not strike me as being 'exalting one's own confession of faith' above all others.

Nor does it involve making unfounded historical claims which you don't back up with hard evidence.

I said that protestantism STARTED the enlightment. I didn't say taht protestants are the most enlightent people in the world who didn't do anything wrong.

And yet your very own words say that you did. As for the second part, no you didn't. But then I didn't claim that was what you had said. You simply said that the Protestant nations were most enlightened. I notice you didn't actually define what this enlightenment consisted of- their slave trading and organised institutional racism seem to have escaped your attention. After all it was the Dutch Reformed Church (Protestant) in South Africa which backed up apartheid with its own idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible.

I compare that with the Roman Catholic Church in Central and South America, which despite the depredations of the forces led by the conquistadors still had men and women who believed that the natives had souls and wished to save them. Which attitude is the more enlightened ?

you're talking about later evolutions of protestantism. Maarten Luther, the father of the Lutherian church, believed that only personal faith would save.

I don't really see how in talking about Lutheranism I was talking about a 'later evolution' of Protestantism. Protestantism as it's now defined began with Luther and his aristocratic supporters in the Holy Roman Empire.

In any case, you said that Protestantism lacked a hierarchy- Lutheran bishops would argue otherwise, as would the Calvinist idea of an elect and the existence of Presbyteries. More dissident forms of Protestantism, such as Quakerism and Anabaptism, do/did lack the same hierarchical structure as Lutheranism or Presbyterianism.

In the RCC you're partially personal responsible. YOu're responsible for your own mistakes, but you don't get the responisibility to make your own choises.

You're a little out of touch with both practice and theory in Roman Catholicism. The Pope can issue bulls and encyclicals, but the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church does indeed stress personal responsibility.

There are no 'get out of hell free' cards...

The point is that the protestant way of thinking started the enlightment.

Then let's see your evidence.

I see nothing enlightened in Calvin's judicial murder of Michael Servetus because Servetus was an Anti-Trinitarian and refuted Calvin's theological arguments for a trinity; nor do I see any enlightenment in Luther's views on the Jews or the Peasant revolt.

In your rush to endow Protestantism with the creation of the Enlightenment, you have wholly overlooked the significant contributions of Copernicus and Galileo, Descartes and Pascal- to name but 4 non-Protestants.

[Spiffor]

There are no 'get out of hell free' cards...

Whereas in protestantism, there is one. Just say Jesus is your Lord and Saviour, and no matter what kind of ******* you can be, you'll enjoy the delights of heaven.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Spiffor

There are no 'get out of hell free' cards...

Whereas in protestantism, there is one. Just say Jesus is your Lord and Saviour, and no matter what kind of ******* you can be, you'll enjoy the delights of heaven.

Yes, and I do also find the Calvinist obsession with pre-destination quite revolting.

Really, what are the objective standards for knowing you have been predestined for salvation?


None that I can see.

There's an awful lot of smugness involved with some Protestant sects....

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Yes, and I do also find the Calvinist obsession with pre-destination quite revolting.

Really, what are the objective standards for knowing you have been predestined for salvation?


None that I can see.

There's an awful lot of smugness involved with some Protestant sects....

One of the few Molly Bloom on religion posts that I agree with.

Jon Miller
(I run into that in SDAism also, and we aren't even pre-destinationist)

(I am pretty sure that there is no better way to run people out of the church than to do so.. (I am not saying make people not Christian))

[Jon Miller]

Err, I also somewhat agree with the one before hand about how the enlightenment was caused by more than just the Protestant Reformation.

The Protestant Reformation was one of the causes, however.

JM

[Arrian]

Pre-destination is one of the strangest Christian beliefs out there, IMO.

-Arrian

[Jon Miller]

Predestinationism is interesting, but sets me on edge.

One interesting form of predestinationists are the universalists (everyone is predestined to be saved.. even if it takes multiple lives to do so).

Jon Miller
(one of if not my best friend in undergrad was of the position of predistined universalism.. I think that MacDonald was similiar (wrote Lilith and other speculative fiction stories, was highly praised by CS Lewis))

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Arrian
Pre-destination is one of the strangest Christian beliefs out there, IMO.

-Arrian

Unfortunately it's been around in one form or another since at least St. Augustine of Hippo.

I'm most familiar with the Calvinist form- and its varieties as seen in the United Kingdom. I've never found it attractive.


Of course, you did get a few of them shipped over to the states, but I feel Europe's the better off for it.

Puritan catechism in The New-England Primer, 1646 :
"I was conceived in Sin &
Born in iniquity."

The pre-destined just wanna have fun, oh oh...

[Ben Kenobi]

The 5 books of Moses do not prophecies Jesus.

Really!

Gen.3:15

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Genesis 12:3, 18:18

"Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation and all nations on earth will be blessed through him."

This is why christ must be born of Israel to fulfill this promise.

Gen.17:19

Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him

Numbers 24:17

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

Genesis 49:10

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.

Deut.18:15

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Really!

he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth

" It's 'Search For A Biblical Star' with that well-known prince of peace, Jesus H. Christ ! "

I've rarely seen such ludicrous interpretations of mouldy old scripture.

Your certainty of Biblical prophecy begs just so many questions....

[Vesayen]

Ben Kenobi. Its on. Almost all of those quotes are out of context. I’ll add the context.

*pulls out his banjo*

Da na na na na na na na……

Gen.3:15
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Who is this quote to? This is being spoken to the SNAKE IN EDEN BY G-D. It is the curse G-D gives the serpent. It is saying that men will kill snakes, if a bit flowery. The preceding lines describe the snake and tempting Eve, G-D getting pissed and the next passage is the curse G-D gives to Eve, then to Adam.

Nowhere does this speak of Jesus, of any coming Messiah, it is said to the snake and saying men will oppress snakes. Well, its true, isn’t it? How many snakes have we killed for millennia? The preceding line describes that snakes will from then on crawl on their belly and only east dust. Jesus is nowhere in there, it is a curse to the snake, you took the context out, entirely.

"Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation and all nations on earth will be blessed through him."

How is this a prophecy of Jesus? 12:3 which you ommited is the promise to make Abraham into a great nation and saying he will bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.. 18:18 which you quoted is part of the same promise, repeated again later.

18:13 is misquoted by the way, the line you are quoting is 18:18. The context is G-D is talking to 3 angels, the one who came to tell Sarah she would be pregnant. They just left and are on their way to Sodom and Gemorah to talk to Abraham’s nephew. The conversation is “Well your on your way and about to go destroy the city, should I tell Abraham this, Abraham who is going to be the beginning of a great and powerful nation?”

The blessing is not the blessing of “Jesus” it is the blessing that Jews are on the earth. The purpose of Judaism is to live good lives and hope others follow our example and are in turn, good to each other.

Don’t hijack our blessing.

Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him

Same covenant. This is the covenant G-D makes with Abraham. This is establishing that the deal G-D makes with Abraham will also be with all of his descendants.

This is ENORMOUSLY specific. Are you insinuating that the covenant is with Jesus? No. This is with Isac(the him described in the VERY previous line). Isac is Abrahams son, this is more description of the covenant G-D made with the Jews.

Numbers 24:17
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

Backround: One of the cananite chiefs is worried the Jews will conquer him. They send for a "mystic" from what is probably Iraq, for the mystic to come and curse Israel so the cannanite chief will beat them in battle. On the way G-D talked to the mystic(whose name is Balaam) and says "No you don't. Your going to bless Israel, not curse them, because they are mine" On the way as he travels is an endearing story about not being cruel to animals. So Balaam gets to the cananite chief and they go to look at where part of the Jews had settled. The chief says "Okay mystic, do your thing, curse em." Balaam the mystic says "How can I curse them, when G-D has not cursed them?" and further explains he can not do it.

The chief says okay, if you can't curse them here, lets curse em someplace else. They go to another hill and the chief says, "How about here?". The mystic Balaam then says... "sorry, can't do it. I'm going home. Oh, before I go home, let me tell you what is going to happen. The G-D of Israel and the Jews are going to kick your ass." The "he" described is not Jesus but the G-D OF ISRAEL. He is describing that the G-D of Israel will defeat the chief and the Jews will beat him in combat. The entire passage is referring to the defeat of THIS SPECIFIC CHIEF, who has been the subject for the last 2 and a half chapters of Numbers. The he is clearly the chief, there is no grammatical innuendo, it is clearly talking about and talking to the chief.

Unless the mystic who has been talking to the chief for 2 chapters is now saying “Oh… by the way. Even though I have been describing the G-D of Israel for 2 chapters, and every he in those 2 chapters refers to him, I am now going to tell you what is going to happen to other people…. even though I have been telling YOU what is going to happen TO YOU for 2 chapters, and even though as soon as I continue past this sentence, I am going to resume saying what is happening TO YOU, except for this one sentence, where the “he” referred to changes and I say what will happen to other people, with no context or reason to think that, to explain what will happen to other people, long after your dead.

To make it even clearer…. When precisely did Jesus kill the Moabs? I don’t recall Jesus ever going to war.

This is possibly the most misquoted line in the entire Torah, it is taking ENTIRLEY out of context. It is taken unbelievably out of context. If you pick a random “he” in the entire Torah, I think I could probably find biblical prophecy of who will win the next prime minister seat in France, except well, if you read the context of the quote… that might fall through. This is a random sentence picked and taken entirely out of context.

If you’d like to understand the context, I would recommend you begin reading at numbers at numbers 21:31 so you get the full background.

Genesis 49:10
The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.

Context: Jacob is dying, he is giving his blessing to his sons. He speaks to each of his sons, each of which goes to found one of the 12 tribes of Israel. This quote is from the blessing he gives to his son, Judah. He is describing the fate of Judah and his children. It is describing the political dominance of the tribe of Judah, which historically is true. Judah is not one of the lost tribes. Judah also held Jewish sovereignty the longest as a nation of any of the tribes. After most of Israel had fallen under foreign rule, Judah held out and was the last Jewish political rulers in Israel. Most Jews today are descended from Judah.

So this is not a description of Jesus, this is Jacob’s blessing to Judah. Lets suppose he is describing Jesus. “until he comes to whom it[the rulers staff] belongs and the obedience of nations is his].” Jesus has never ruled any country. I am ADAMANT about being truthful even when it harms my point of view. This could be interpreted loosely as prophesizing the second coming of Jesus, if he rules over all nations forever, after he begins his rule… but he never began his rule, now did he? Jesus was a descendant of Judah, as far as I recall.

Deutoronomy 18:15
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him

Another quote unbelievably out of context.

It is in part of a long list of dos and do nots. Oddly enough… well lets look TWO LINES UP.

The previous few lines are describing that you should not partake in child sacrifice, or sorcery, or divination or witch craft.

18:13 “You must remain completely loyal to the lord your G-D”

18:14
“Although these nations that you are about to disposes do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the lord your G-D does not permit you to do so.”

18:15-your translation, is wrong. Mine is right. Hebrew is not a dead language and the Christian version of the “old testament” is not the same as the original. This can be empirically and archaeologically proven, we have a roughly 2,000 year old copies of most of the Torah-the dead sea scrolls. When the Torah and the “old testament” conflict, the Torah is right. This is not a matter of faith, this is a demonsratable fact.
“The lord your G-D will raise up for you a prophet, like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet”

Who is the he?

Who knows. It is not G-D though, one of the sages. Debatible who. What sage in the HISTORY OF JUDAISM overrides G-D? Not one of them. The Torah is filled with dozens of warnings that you will obey G-D, you will hold no one in higher loyalty. Throughout the Torah when it could possibly be unclear where you might give your allegiance to someone besides G-D, it reinforced.

“like me” is the prophet who will be raised.

I’d like to remind you again of this line before I go on.
18:13 “You must remain completely loyal to the lord your G-D”

Even here it says no prophet will so great as to override G-D or his commandments. Jesus messages overrides G-D and the laws he gave. Except according to this passage and the passages that precede it, whoever this prophet to come is, he is like one who has already come. No prophet has ever overthrown all of the old law, or anything even remotely like it, now has he?

Lets go a step further. Is Jesus “like” any sage in the Torah? He is your god. No matter how great a sage is in Judaism, no one is worthy of worship. The burial sight of Moshe Rabeinu, the greatest sage in Judaism is INTENTIONALLY FORGOTTEN so we do not worship him. No sage in Judaism even holds a candle up to G-D, yet the prophet who is supposed to come, is like some prophet who existed for the date. Obviously not Jesus.

I am home now so I pulled out my copy of the 5 books, I checked 4 different translation to make sure this is not a problem between translating Hebrew to English. All of them have the same translation.

DA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NAAAAAA!





Now none of this says you should not follow Christianity(unless your Jewish, in which case 18:13 does heh), but it does show that the passages you quote do not prophecise Jesus.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben Kenobi. Its on. Almost all of those quotes are out of context. I’ll add the context.

Ok this should be interesting. You accusing me of not looking at the context?

Who is this quote to? This is being spoken to the SNAKE IN EDEN BY G-D. It is the curse G-D gives the serpent. It is saying that men will kill snakes, if a bit flowery. The preceding lines describe the snake and tempting Eve, G-D getting pissed and the next passage is the curse G-D gives to Eve, then to Adam.

I suggest you read just a little more into the passage rather then just the surface.

First of all, the snake is Satan, I do believe that Jews teach that also, and that Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the form of the serpent. This is why this passage is crucial, that one of the descendents of the women will 'crush the heel of the serpent'. That's more then just enmity between Satan and men, it speaks to the destruction of Satan's power over men, as seen by Christ's death and resurrection.

Nowhere does this speak of Jesus, of any coming Messiah, it is said to the snake and saying men will oppress snakes.

Read again. It refers to a specific descendent of the woman of Eve who will crush the heel of the serpent apart from the enmity between the serpent and man.

I haven't taken anything 'out of context' I suggest if you have a criticism, that your criticism is that I actually bring far more contextual ideas into my analysis rather then the careless comment 'man will kill snakes.'

How is this a prophecy of Jesus? 12:3 which you ommited is the promise to make Abraham into a great nation and saying he will bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.. 18:18 which you quoted is part of the same promise, repeated again later.

Good question. How is it that the Jews, who are limited will bring salvation to the whole world? Again, we see this in the Messiah, in that the Messiah must be a descendent of Abraham and through the Messiah, all men can come to know God. The Jews are blessed as caretakers of the Law and the Prophets given to them.

The blessing is not the blessing of “Jesus” it is the blessing that Jews are on the earth. The purpose of Judaism is to live good lives and hope others follow our example and are in turn, good to each other.

Jews are blessed not in themselves, but in their devotion to God. God has given them a special relationship to him, and when Israel strays, God can and has punished even his own people as they grieve him.

18:13 is misquoted by the way, the line you are quoting is 18:18.

Nope. Read my post again. I quote and cite 18:18.

Maybe you should try reading my post rather then poking holes.

The context is G-D is talking to 3 angels, the one who came to tell Sarah she would be pregnant. They just left and are on their way to Sodom and Gemorah to talk to Abraham’s nephew. The conversation is “Well your on your way and about to go destroy the city, should I tell Abraham this, Abraham who is going to be the beginning of a great and powerful nation?”

It is a restatement of the blessing to Abraham, and God's covenant with Abraham, and also demonstrates how the Messiah must come from the line of Abraham.

Same covenant. This is the covenant G-D makes with Abraham. This is establishing that the deal G-D makes with Abraham will also be with all of his descendants.

This is ENORMOUSLY specific. Are you insinuating that the covenant is with Jesus? No. This is with Isac(the him described in the VERY previous line). Isac is Abrahams son, this is more description of the covenant G-D made with the Jews.

All I said is that the Messiah must come from the line of Isaac. I sincerely doubt that the Jews disagree with me on this point. Christ is the fulfillment of this prophecy, you can claim that he did not fulfill it because he was the messiah, but I think it's rather silly to deny that the Messiah must come from the children of Israel.

To make it even clearer…. When precisely did Jesus kill the Moabs? I don’t recall Jesus ever going to war.

No he didn't, but you have to ask yourself, are there one Messiah or two?

That's the trouble. There are two types of prophecies, those that apply to his first coming, and those that apply to the second. Isn't the Messiah supposed to come and rule over the Earth?

This is a random sentence picked and taken entirely out of context.

If you’d like to understand the context, I would recommend you begin reading at numbers at numbers 21:31 so you get the full background.

Oh thanks but I did already.

So this is not a description of Jesus, this is Jacob’s blessing to Judah. Lets suppose he is describing Jesus. “until he comes to whom it[the rulers staff] belongs and the obedience of nations is his].” Jesus has never ruled any country. I am ADAMANT about being truthful even when it harms my point of view. This could be interpreted loosely as prophesizing the second coming of Jesus, if he rules over all nations forever, after he begins his rule… but he never began his rule, now did he? Jesus was a descendant of Judah, as far as I recall.

Again, the same critique of earlier. Not all these prophecies have been fulfilled yet by Christ. It's that last part that is the sticky part, how can it refer to Judah when Judah will never rule over all the earth. Christ in his second coming is supposed to fulfill these things, the Jews themselves acknowledge that this is what the Messiah is supposed to do, even if they reject Christ.

Indeed he was, and he had to be in order to fulfill these prophecies.

18:15-your translation, is wrong. Mine is right. Hebrew is not a dead language and the Christian version of the “old testament” is not the same as the original.

Your beef is with the NIV, not with me. I don't translate passages, and I'm not sure why you assume Christians do not have access to the same documents.

This can be empirically and archaeologically proven, we have a roughly 2,000 year old copies of most of the Torah-the dead sea scrolls. When the Torah and the “old testament” conflict, the Torah is right. This is not a matter of faith, this is a demonsratable fact.
“The lord your G-D will raise up for you a prophet, like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet”

A prophet not prophets. That's what caught my attention and why many interpret this passage as referring to the Messiah.

Secondly, your translation is hardly different from mine. Why quarrel over unnecessary troubles.

Even here it says no prophet will so great as to override G-D or his commandments. Jesus messages overrides G-D and the laws he gave. Except according to this passage and the passages that precede it, whoever this prophet to come is, he is like one who has already come. No prophet has ever overthrown all of the old law, or anything even remotely like it, now has he?

Depends on what you mean by override. Would you really claim that the teachings of Christ are contrary to the Law and Prophets? I would be sincerely interested in you showing exactly where Christ insists that the old must be contrary to the new.

[civman2000]

First of all, the snake is Satan, I do believe that Jews teach that also, and that Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the form of the serpent. This is why this passage is crucial, that one of the descendents of the women will 'crush the heel of the serpent'. That's more then just enmity between Satan and men, it speaks to the destruction of Satan's power over men, as seen by Christ's death and resurrection.

Eh, I'm not so sure how universal that serpent=Satan interpretation is. I went to Hebrew school and never heard of it. Certainly, from a historical POV, I highly doubt that that interpretation was around when Genesis was first written. Plus, it's not talking about a single man "crushing the heel of the serpent," but all men. If you read it again, it is quite clear that "he" is not referring to a single person but to a collective "man" or "offspring".

All I said is that the Messiah must come from the line of Isaac. I sincerely doubt that the Jews disagree with me on this point. Christ is the fulfillment of this prophecy, you can claim that he did not fulfill it because he was the messiah, but I think it's rather silly to deny that the Messiah must come from the children of Israel.

But how does that count as evidence for Jesus or a Messiah in the OT ? Nothing in the quote suggests that there needs to be a later Messiah to fulfill the prophecy.

[Vesayen]

Who is this quote to? This is being spoken to the SNAKE IN EDEN BY G-D. It is the curse G-D gives the serpent. It is saying that men will kill snakes, if a bit flowery. The preceding lines describe the snake and tempting Eve, G-D getting pissed and the next passage is the curse G-D gives to Eve, then to Adam.

I suggest you read just a little more into the passage rather then just the surface.

First of all, the snake is Satan, I do believe that Jews teach that also, and that Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the form of the serpent.

No actually, it does not. The snake is well, a snake. Really. Since Jews don't believe in hell we SURE as hell don't believein Satan. The word "saa tan"(spelling it phonetically) comes to mind as far as I can think of, twice in Jewish literature. Once in Job and I forget the other time. He is an angel, no real special distinguishing role. No angel really takes any prominent role in Judaism at all, the only non human focus is on G-D. The snake is, a snake. The authors of the text believed the snake was, a snake, so, its a snake.

That's more then just enmity between Satan and men, it speaks to the destruction of Satan's power over men, as seen by Christ's death and resurrection.

Except in Judaism the snake *REALLY IS* just a snake.

Nowhere does this speak of Jesus, of any coming Messiah, it is said to the snake and saying men will oppress snakes.

Read again. It refers to a specific descendent of the woman of Eve who will crush the heel of the serpent apart from the enmity between the serpent and man.

I haven't taken anything 'out of context' I suggest if you have a criticism, that your criticism is that I actually bring far more contextual ideas into my analysis rather then the careless comment 'man will kill snakes.

Have you actually read the passage you are reffering to? There is no context, no refference to a specific individual. Where the hell are you drawing a specific descendant from? Could you quote the specific line because I can not even imagine where you are getting it from..... Really, I want to see the line your reffering to which makes you think it is reffering to ANY specific individual, let alone Jesus....

I haven't taken anything 'out of context' I suggest if you have a criticism, that your criticism is that I actually bring far more contextual ideas into my analysis rather then the careless comment 'man will kill snakes.'

No, the nature of the world changed after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden. There were no carnivors in Eden, the lion lay with the lamb etc. This line is reffering to part of the change in the natural world, one specific change, that snakes will be a menace to men, so men are going to kill them when they are able.

Again, I want you to quote the specific line you think is reffering to ANY specific individual, let alone Jesus, I am re-reading it for the third time today and I honestly can not imagine we are reading the same thing.

Hell, i'll copy it out by hand(I don't trust most online sources of the Torah, they are poor Christian translations).

I'll go up a few times....

Then the Lord G-D said to woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent has tricked me, and I ate." The lord G-D said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you amoung all animals and amoung all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put emnity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike you on the head and you will strike his heel." To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to the man he said......"

I think we can stop there.

A refference to any individual? I don't see it. A refference to Jesus? I sure as heck don't see it... could you pull it out for me?

Good question. How is it that the Jews, who are limited will bring salvation to the whole world? Again, we see this in the Messiah, in that the Messiah must be a descendent of Abraham and through the Messiah, all men can come to know God. The Jews are blessed as caretakers of the Law and the Prophets given to them.

It is not the job of the "Jews" to redeam the world. The world is not an evil place and may not even need saving. A quote from numerous Hebrew prayers is(I am paraphrasing) "Forgive me G-D, for in despair I said all mankind was evil".

It is every individual persons job to redeam themself. I think there is a clash of ideology here though. When you say redeam, you mean redeam from hell.... which as a Jew has never made sense to me, since your god throws you there by virtue of the fact that he set up the system....

When Jews say redeam, obviously they are not reffering to hell since there is no hell, they are usually refering to a life more pleasing to G-D/self improvment. A sin is bad BECAUSE IT IS BAD, not because of the punishment and you should avoid sining BECAUSE it is INHERANTLY bad, not because of any reward or punishment.

Also, not sining makes G-D happy and since you owe him, its a nice thing to do out of respect. Then again, non Jews have way less potential sins to commit then Jews do-the only real sins they can commit are ones which harm each other.

Does the world need redeaming? Maybe, maybe not.

So can Jews with limited means redeam the world? No.
Is it their job to redeam the world? Not really.

Jews are supposed to live good lives and hope others follow example, no one ever "reamds" anyone but themselves and no outside force, even G-D is needed for that.

You are describing an inability on the part of the Jews which makes the need of Jesus neccesary except there is no inability and no problem. This has little relevance to the point though.

The blessing is not the blessing of “Jesus” it is the blessing that Jews are on the earth. The purpose of Judaism is to live good lives and hope others follow our example and are in turn, good to each other.

Jews are blessed not in themselves, but in their devotion to God. God has given them a special relationship to him, and when Israel strays, God can and has punished even his own people as they grieve him.

Actually no, Jews are blessed in themselves. Jews are like a whoring, alcoholic husband who keeps leaving his wife to go to the bar. G-D forgives us anyway because we made a deal and he knows we'll come home sorry eventually. G-D can punish us even if we are blessed.

Anyway, I fail to see what your response has to do with my response.... I said that this blessing is not "Jesus" but the blessing and the covenant G-D makes with the nation of Israel. I don't see what your response says to that.... How does your response show the covenant of Israel is actually "Jesus"?

Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him

All I said is that the Messiah must come from the line of Isaac. I sincerely doubt that the Jews disagree with me on this point. Christ is the fulfillment of this prophecy, you can claim that he did not fulfill it because he was the messiah, but I think it's rather silly to deny that the Messiah must come from the children of Israel.

Your reading with the conclusion already found. This is not a “prophecy” of Jesus. It needs context. It needs detail. Is there ANY reason for you think this refers to Jesus, except that you want it to? All Jews are descended from Isaac and Jesus was a Jew, besides that, there is not a single thing showing that this is Jesus, heck it could be the Lebuvache Rebe(sp?), he is a Jew who was also a descendant of Isaac(by default). How about all the other messiahs floating around in the second temple period? Is there a single scrap of evidence which points to Jesus?

How can Jesus be the fulfillment of a COVENANT? It is not a prophecy G-D is referring to in this instance, but a promise. G-D is saying I have a deal with the Jews, forever. How can you have a fulfillment of such a deal, which is the existence of Jesus? That is like saying “Okay the terms of the contract say we will pay you $15.00 at the end of January. I am going to go paint your house now, to end the contract.” Er no…. that is not the same contract.

To make it even clearer…. When precisely did Jesus kill the Moabs? I don’t recall Jesus ever going to war.

No he didn't, but you have to ask yourself, are there one Messiah or two?

That's the trouble. There are two types of prophecies, those that apply to his first coming, and those that apply to the second. Isn't the Messiah supposed to come and rule over the Earth?

Ask 5 Jews, get several dozens answers, none of them particularly certain. Judaism says worry about now and tomorrow, when/if Meshiach comes, we’ll worry about that then.

This line is CLEARLY not referring to Jesus because the individual or group described, never killed the Moabites. Unless you want to delete that line, because it does not fit?

Is that like when you delete the letter T because the prophecy of “Hister” making a great war does not fit?

I guess I forgot that the Torah was actually adlibs or a soduko puzzle, where you play with the parts till it fits.

Again, the same critique of earlier. Not all these prophecies have been fulfilled yet by Christ. It's that last part that is the sticky part, how can it refer to Judah when Judah will never rule over all the earth. Christ in his second coming is supposed to fulfill these things, the Jews themselves acknowledge that this is what the Messiah is supposed to do, even if they reject Christ.

Your claim was that the Torah prophecise Jesus. How exactly can you use the Torah as evidence if that event has not happened yet? We’ll talk about this one when Jesus is still not here in another 2,000 years(Apolyton will last that long, right?)

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.

Again, the same critique of earlier. Not all these prophecies have been fulfilled yet by Christ. It's that last part that is the sticky part, how can it refer to Judah when Judah will never rule over all the earth. Christ in his second coming is supposed to fulfill these things, the Jews themselves acknowledge that this is what the Messiah is supposed to do, even if they reject Christ.
Indeed he was, and he had to be in order to fulfill these prophecies.

This is not a description of Judah ruling all the nations. Judah is NOT supposed to rule all the nations. Only G-D can tell the Nation of Israel when to go to war, they can’t do it themselves(not to be confused with the modern secular state of Israel which has no divine endorsement, though I wish it well). This is saying that once Judah rules, it will not cease to rule “till it comes to whom it belongs”. The Jews were not kicked out of Israel by secular powers, it only happened because G-D let it happen. The rulership of Israel went to who it belonged for that time, G-D gave the land away to non Jews when he kicked the Jews out of Israel.

Once again, no specific or even vague reference to Jesus. Judah may have lasted the longest and makes up most Jews today, but isn’t Jesus’s father from the tribe of Levi? Hell it is irrelevant. At the time, tribe membership went through THE FATHER. Each blessing is a description of the tribe and their offspring. Jesus had no father, so he could not of been a member of the tribe of Judah, now could he? You could not “convert” to Judaism in those days, you could only marry in. A non Jew could live in Israel and among the Jews, but he could not become a Jew.

And to remind you once again of the most serious problem(because it may get lost in my numerous other refutations). Where is the detail? Where is the detail which refers to Jesus?

Your beef is with the NIV, not with me. I don't translate passages, and I'm not sure why you assume Christians do not have access to the same documents.

Because they don’t. Because your copies don’t match up to ours(nor do they even match up with each other) and we can prove ours predate yours.

“The lord your G-D will raise up for you a prophet, like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet”

A prophet not prophets. That's what caught my attention and why many interpret this passage as referring to the Messiah.

Secondly, your translation is hardly different from mine. Why quarrel over unnecessary troubles.

Ridiculous. Lets apply that same idea to a line of text a handful of lines up. A handful of lines it up it says you will not suffer a witch to live. Does that mean we will not suffer a SPECIFIC witch to live, and after we suffer that one, we can suffer the rest and never kill more witches?

I trouble because very small differences can make all the difference in the world. Heck, you just focused on the fact it says “a prophet”-if it said “prophets”, would you say the same thing? Precise wording is very important.

Depends on what you mean by override. Would you really claim that the teachings of Christ are contrary to the Law and Prophets? I would be sincerely interested in you showing exactly where Christ insists that the old must be contrary to the new.

He tell us to not keep Kosher, to violate Shabat, that HE is god incarnate, he challenged the authority of the high priest-a system which had G-Ds support. So,yes. Jesus tells us to throw out the law and follow *HIM*(“I am the way” sound familiar?), when a handful of lines up we are reminded(for the zillionth time in the Torah) to follow no one but G-D. This message is repeated a ridiculously, entirely overly redundant number of time sin the Torah. While this line may say a prophet will come(one prophet? Okay. Who says its Jesus? Even then, I still fail to see why we limit it to one), there are other warnings in the Torah to be careful of men claiming to be prophets and even goes further in other places to warn that people who show sorcery other miracles should not be followed because of that, we are then reminded again that “I am the lord your G-D and you will have none before me.”

There are numerous prophets in Judaism who do not display any sort of miraculous powers or abilities, just great wisdom and for good reason, G-D warns us to watch out for laser light shows and magic tricks. When someone is a true prophet, it is so abundantly clear that it can not be denied. Judaism generally holds the same rule of thumb for the coming of the Meshiach actually-though this is more in the oral tradition, it is not in the five books. How do we know when Meshiach comes? We will know, the proof will be so abundantly obvious that no one can possibly deny it…. Jewish tradition also holds that when Meshiach comes, everything is going to be going well on earth-world peace, lots of love etc, no mass slaughter of those who don’t genuflex-the skys wont burn, the starts wont fall and there wont be a sea of blood. Depending on who you ask, when/if Meshiach comes, the world will not even be fundamentally different then it is now, just vastly improved(the view I happen to hold).

I think there is a good chance I messed up repeatedly parsing the HTML on quotes… we’ll see when I post. If so, give me a minute to fix em.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Vesayen

Since Jews don't believe in hell we SURE as hell don't believein Satan.

That's just classic phrasing.