One God, One Saviour the Creator

[sojourner]

Also, keep in mind the local office supply store didn’t have their grand opening until about two thousand years later. Writers in ancient times would be stuck with the tedious task of creating their own paper and making their own ink.

Well, paper was out of the question. As I stated, most writing was temporary, and done on wax tablets that could be melted and reused. If the writing needed to be permanent, papyrus was used. If the writing was very important (royal documents and the like), vellum, or animal skin, was used. But your point is correct. They had to make the stuff themselves.

 

[sojourner]

Really, so it takes a Scholar to understand this.
*
I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.
22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.
I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour
They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand
*
Scholars learn what other Scholars teach them, they study the Words of Men, and then add their 2 cents worth, hoping they will get credit for some revelation they've dreamed up.

It generally takes a scholar to exegete it, because exegesis is a more-or-less scholarly pursuit.

 

[roger1440]

Howie and I have had many discussion over many years and we are pretty much on the same page except for one area, namely the timing of when the early church began to walk away from most of the Law and Paul's position and teachings that relate to that. He contends that the walking away from the Law was done pretty much after 70 c.e. by the gentiles that began to form the majority, along with an increasingly gentile leadership, and my contention is that it started before this and that Jesus had to open that door in that direction one way or another, intentionally or not. He also sees Paul as pretty much being a renegade that was not really much welcomed by the apostles.

My contention is that Paul, even though he seems to have added teachings that Jesus probably didn't enunciate, nevertheless was welcomed by apostles, even though there does seem to be at least somewhat of an "issue" that James has with him. I see Jesus as a charismatic figure who was radical enough in his theology, especially in his dealing with the Law, to create problems with especially the Jewish leadership and eventually the Romans. Both of us agree that Jesus' actions at the Temple and his talking about the "kingdom" probably got him crucified.

This general area Howie and I debated for months on end, and sometimes it got quite heated, and he would blame me for relying too much on the gospel accounts, and I would blame him for reading too much into what they say when reading between the lines. Fortunately, over the years we became such good friends that he invited my wife and I to come stay and visit with him down in the Dallas area, and we invited him and his wife to come stay with us in the U.P. Unfortunately, neither of us have had the opportunity to do so. He no longer does message boards, but he and I talk via e-mail a few times a year.

Pardon the pun, but I don’t accept the Pauline letters as gospel. According to his own writings, he had met a few of the Apostles. He doesn’t mention anything about Jesus’s life nor quote him except one time. The Last Supper thingie. Didn’t Jesus say nor do anything worth mentioning? Jesus must have done something with his life, LOL

 

[Levite]

Really, so it takes a Scholar to understand this.
*
I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.
22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.
I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour
They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand
*
Scholars learn what other Scholars teach them, they study the Words of Men, and then add their 2 cents worth, hoping they will get credit for some revelation they've dreamed up.

Considering that even if you believe the authors of the Bible were prophets, prophets are still men; and considering that you are reading the Bible in a translation done by men; you probably shouldn't be too hasty with the whole "words of men" business.

Plus, being dismissive of scholarship is the same thing as being embracing of ignorance. If God wanted us to be ignorant, we wouldn't be capable of reason and complex thought. Why would God-- the most advanced and complex entity in existence-- want to keep us in ignorance? That seems like a particularly ridiculous theology.

 

[pearl]

Can you name a scholar on the New Testament who is not a Christian? There may be some but I don't know of any.

Rabbi Pinchas Lapide a New Testament theologian and former associate professor at the American College in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Jacob Neusner

 

[julio.2]

Considering that even if you believe the authors of the Bible were prophets, prophets are still men; and considering that you are reading the Bible in a translation done by men; you probably shouldn't be too hasty with the whole "words of men" business.

Plus, being dismissive of scholarship is the same thing as being embracing of ignorance. If God wanted us to be ignorant, we wouldn't be capable of reason and complex thought. Why would God-- the most advanced and complex entity in existence-- want to keep us in ignorance? That seems like a particularly ridiculous theology.

God teaches us to judge whether a Prophet is really a Prophet by if what the Prophet says for God comes true. Isaiah the virgin birth and so on. Very few authors can claim this. How many can you or any so called Scholar of God count?

 

[julio.2]

Pardon the pun, but I don’t accept the Pauline letters as gospel. According to his own writings, he had met a few of the Apostles. He doesn’t mention anything about Jesus’s life nor quote him except one time. The Last Supper thingie. Didn’t Jesus say nor do anything worth mentioning? Jesus must have done something with his life, LOL

Yes, Jesus was Servant to God and did what the Prophet Isaiah said he would. To bring in the new and remove the old Covenant.

 

[pearl]

There are many Jewish scholars who understand more about Jesus and Christianity than many Christians. One such scholar is Schalom Ben-Chorin, a lecturer and visiting professor at the Tubingen school. He writes;

"The further I have gone along the road of life, the nearer I have come to the figure of Jesus. AT every turning of the road he has been standing, repeatedly putting the question he asked at Caesarea Philippi; 'Who am I". And repeatedly I have had to give him an answer. And I am convinced that he will continue to go with me, as long as I go along my road, and that he will constantly come to meet me as he once came to meet Peter on the Via Appia, so legend tells us, and as he once came to meet Paul, as the Act of the Apostles relate, on the Damascus Road. Again and again I meet him, and again and again we converse together on the coming kingdom. And since I left Christian Europe and went to live in Jewish Israel, he has come much closer to me: for I am now living in his land and among his people, and his sayings and parables are as close and as alive for me, as though it was all happening here and now. When at the passah meal I lift the cup and bread the unleavened bead, I am doing what he did, and I know that I am much closer to him than many Christians who celebrate the Eucharist in complete separation from its Jewish origins."

 

[sojourner]

God teaches us to judge whether a Prophet is really a Prophet by if what the Prophet says for God comes true.

Cite your source, and give us a verbatim quote, please.

Isaiah the virgin birth and so on.

There's no tenable proof that Mary was a virgin. She was, as the text has it, a "young woman."

 

[sojourner]

Yes, Jesus was Servant to God and did what the Prophet Isaiah said he would. To bring in the new and remove the old Covenant.

But Jesus didn't "remove" the old Covenant.

 

[metis]

Pardon the pun, but I don’t accept the Pauline letters as gospel. According to his own writings, he had met a few of the Apostles. He doesn’t mention anything about Jesus’s life nor quote him except one time. The Last Supper thingie. Didn’t Jesus say nor do anything worth mentioning? Jesus must have done something with his life, LOL

I undoubtedly regard the Pauline letters less than even you do, but neither do I see him bastardizing Christianity either. According to Acts, Paul met the apostles at least three times plus corresponded through letters, so if Paul was supposedly so far our of the apostles' mainstream beliefs, why would they have given him the time of day? What I have seen many do is to throw Paul under the bus, which makes so little sense in regards to not only the apostles' reactions to him but also the simple fact that Paul's letters were more widely circulated in the early church than even the gospels. This is not to say, however, that I believe Paul was correct.

As far as your last three sentences are concerned, that's pretty much a repeat of my position if I'm understanding you correctly.

 

[metis]

God teaches us to judge whether a Prophet is really a Prophet by if what the Prophet says for God comes true. Isaiah the virgin birth and so on. Very few authors can claim this. How many can you or any so called Scholar of God count?

About a third of the prophets never predicted the future, and a "prophet" was one who spoke for God by passing His message forward. Generally speaking, a prophet used what's call the "prophetic injunction", which goes like this or a variation of this: "the Lord your God says...".

Secondly, as someone else mentioned, Isaiah did not write "virgin birth" but a birth from a "young maiden".

 

[Levite]

God teaches us to judge whether a Prophet is really a Prophet by if what the Prophet says for God comes true. Isaiah the virgin birth and so on. Very few authors can claim this. How many can you or any so called Scholar of God count?

First of all "virgin birth" is a misnomer. The prophecy commonly misquoted by Christians simply describes a young woman giving birth. The word for virgin is different, and not used in that text.

Second of all, the criteria you cite are explicitly not the sole criteria: the example in Deuteronomy is that it is not relevant that a prophet is able to predict the future correctly, but whether in doing so they are seeking to bring the people closer to the worship of God or seeking to lead the people astray into forbidden worship. There are, furthermore, many other criteria for judging false interpretation expounded in the Oral Torah, and the Written Torah's laws concerning false prophecy and false interpretation cannot be correctly understood without them.

In any case, the importance of the Prophets in the Tanach is not at all that they predict the future correctly-- in fact, many of them never make specific predictions. Their importance is in the words they speak to try and sway the people back to adherence to the covenant and proper observance of the commandments. The words for "prophet" and having to do with prophecy in Hebrew, in fact have nothing to do with the future or prediction.

Third of all, the Torah and the rest of the Tanach are Jewish scriptures, written by Jews for Jews. They were never intended for a non-Jewish audience. They have nothing to do with non-Jews or non-Jewish religions. It is both absurd and offensive for non-Jews to come along and claim to have superior and true interpretations of Jewish text which contradict Jewish interpretations. Especially when the non-Jews in question seldom are even capable of reading the text in the original languages.

Finally, text is designed to be studied and interpreted. That is its purpose. You have still not provided any compelling answer as to why God would prefer we be ignorant than to think and apply our faculty for reasoning and analysis to sacred text.

 

[pearl]

About a third of the prophets never predicted the future, and a "prophet" was one who spoke for God by passing His message forward. Generally speaking, a prophet used what's call the "prophetic injunction", which goes like this or a variation of this: "the Lord your God says...".

Secondly, as someone else mentioned, Isaiah did not write "virgin birth" but a birth from a "young maiden".

The Prophets spoke from a divine pathos.

 

[julio.2]

But Jesus didn't "remove" the old Covenant.

Right, God did

 

[Levite]

Right, God did

Or not....

 

[julio.2]

I guess it comes down to is whether or not you believe, Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them. Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Isa.24:5The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

 

[gsa]

Third of all, the Torah and the rest of the Tanach are Jewish scriptures, written by Jews for Jews. They were never intended for a non-Jewish audience. They have nothing to do with non-Jews or non-Jewish religions. It is both absurd and offensive for non-Jews to come along and claim to have superior and true interpretations of Jewish text which contradict Jewish interpretations. Especially when the non-Jews in question seldom are even capable of reading the text in the original languages.

Finally, text is designed to be studied and interpreted. That is its purpose. You have still not provided any compelling answer as to why God would prefer we be ignorant than to think and apply our faculty for reasoning and analysis to sacred text.

In general I agree with this assessment, with some very important caveats:

1. The are secular and non-Jewish scholars who are capable of offering interpretations that conflict with Jewish interpretations. I am not here interested in theology, so much I am in textual interpretation, including interpretation that is informed by findings in other academic fields. They are of course subject to the same standards that apply to any scholarship in the field, including peer review. They are not final arbiters in matters theological, which is to say religious meaning, but that is because they are not working within the confines of the tradition, not because their status makes their arguments less probable.

2. I think study and interpretation sometimes requires comparative or outsider perspectives. But this is very different from what is going on in most (though not all) theological discourse. Religious apologists at major divinity schools are often imposing unifying interpretations in accordance with their confessional obligations. Reformed (Calvinist) theologians in particular are fond of typology, which differs from allegory in very important ways. Namely, it is a foreshadowing technique and is often posed on accounts in the Tanakh to explain later Christian theological developments. They read Christian into Jewish scripture, in a way that closely resembles the more explicit claims of fulfilled prophecy contained in the Christian scriptures.

3. I do believe myself that Christians are not in a position to explain Jewish scriptures, but that is largely because I believe that Christian interpretations are typically typological and force the Christian interpretation onto the Jewish scriptures; it is a basic causality issue. The inverse, however, is simply not true; well-trained Jewish scholars are generally better interpreters of the Christian texts because they are familiar with the interpretive techniques that were being used at the time. That said, the real issue is whether or not you are well trained in the languages and the history of the period, and your level of objectivity.

On the issue of Christian fulfillment of prophecy I am in full agreement. I am not even sure that the earliest passion narratives were meant to reflect history in the sense of actual events, and I think it is probable that the more literal interpretation was more or less reinforced as Christianity and Judaism diverged.

Of course, I also doubt that prophecy is well deployed or accurate in the sense of prediction of future events, but I likewise agree that the prophets clearly served an ethical role that is probably more important for modern religion.

 

[gsa]

I guess it comes down to is whether or not you believe, Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them. Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Isa.24:5The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

I sincerely doubt that is a reference to the covenant with Israel. The nations of the Earth cannot transgress the covenant between God and Israel. But even assuming that it referred to a breach on the part of Israel, there are plenty of documented examples, none of which result in the dissolution of the covenant. Frankly, I would think it would be impossible for more conservative Christians to believe that an eternal covenant can be abandoned at all. Is the Christian God inconstant?

 

[julio.2]

In general I agree with this assessment, with some very important caveats:

1. The are secular and non-Jewish scholars who are capable of offering interpretations that conflict with Jewish interpretations. I am not here interested in theology, so much I am in textual interpretation, including interpretation that is informed by findings in other academic fields. They are of course subject to the same standards that apply to any scholarship in the field, including peer review. They are not final arbiters in matters theological, which is to say religious meaning, but that is because they are not working within the confines of the tradition, not because their status makes their arguments less probable.

2. I think study and interpretation sometimes requires comparative or outsider perspectives. But this is very different from what is going on in most (though not all) theological discourse. Religious apologists at major divinity schools are often imposing unifying interpretations in accordance with their confessional obligations. Reformed (Calvinist) theologians in particular are fond of typology, which differs from allegory in very important ways. Namely, it is a foreshadowing technique and is often posed on accounts in the Tanakh to explain later Christian theological developments. They read Christian into Jewish scripture, in a way that closely resembles the more explicit claims of fulfilled prophecy contained in the Christian scriptures.

3. I do believe myself that Christians are not in a position to explain Jewish scriptures, but that is largely because I believe that Christian interpretations are typically typological and force the Christian interpretation onto the Jewish scriptures; it is a basic causality issue. The inverse, however, is simply not true; well-trained Jewish scholars are generally better interpreters of the Christian texts because they are familiar with the interpretive techniques that were being used at the time. That said, the real issue is whether or not you are well trained in the languages and the history of the period, and your level of objectivity.

On the issue of Christian fulfillment of prophecy I am in full agreement. I am not even sure that the earliest passion narratives were meant to reflect history in the sense of actual events, and I think it is probable that the more literal interpretation was more or less reinforced as Christianity and Judaism diverged.

Of course, I also doubt that prophecy is well deployed or accurate in the sense of prediction of future events, but I likewise agree that the prophets clearly served an ethical role that is probably more important for modern religion.

*
The way I read Isaiah is God is fed up with the Jew. Which he says he still has a place for in his heart. He Created a people to bring forth his Praise. He calls on peoples from every corner of the earth to join him in covenant. He says he's done away with the old, ( who's to doubt ) and tells us of the new. All peoples all that see the light, all that believe that he is God and that there was no God before of after.
*
I read a lot of condemnation of the way religions have become. Idols, Jesus, Crosses, praying to gods that can't save.
*
Makes you wonder if this prophesy is to come,
The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts.
14 Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15 The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.
16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.
17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.