I have to disagree that Hebrew Scripture is the best evidence to show Jesus is Messiah. You definitely need New Testament explanation.
No, we need the witness of the Apostles. We went 400 years without a standardized New Testament, but despite that we still converted untold numbers of Jews to Christianity. The Apostles were proving Jesus' Messiahship for 30 years before the first book of the New Testament was ever written. The New Testament is a nice thing to have with proving Jesus is the Messiah and sums up a lot of the main points, but it isn't essential, nor does it fully explain everything, nor does it claim to.
Do Jews agree with this? what proof do you have?
The fact that 3,000 Jews converted to Christianity on the day of Pentecost alone.
Even if it is true, how do you know all of them were not mislead to believe in a false Messiah?
Because of the witness of the Apostles and their explanation of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Therefore you need New Testament as the evidence.
The New Testament is nothing more than the written testimonies of the Apostles and counsel given to various churches.
And the majority of Jews disagreed with their interpretation. They Crucified Jesus, and killed the disciples.
Yes, because the Jews were too proud to see what was happening right before their eyes.
Well, you can have you opinion. There are thousands and thousands of Christians who converted to Baha'i Faith, even among Christian divines.
Like who?
There is nothing in those verses that Jesus is called the Lord of Hosts. Read them again. Moreover reading Isaiah 9:7 carefully we see the description doesn't match with Jesus :"Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end"
Then by this reading, it can't apply to your prophet, either. Because things have been getting worse since your prophet came, not better.
.....We know how Christianity has been divided and how much war and conflict between Christians occurred, and how many cruel pops appeared, then it is obvious the description of " and of peace there will be no end" contradicts with first coming of Christ.
The peace of Christ is within the heart of the Christian first, and from there, it spreads to others. When Christ comes again, His Kingdom will be established firmly and finally on earth, and there will be no more war, no more pain, no more suffering, death, sickness or sorrow.
You misunderstood my friend. Baha'u'llah is not God Himself. He is the Manifestation of God in this Age.
Then don't call him God the Father.
You have no proof for that. I think we went through this before. You have no evidence that Orthodox Christianity is the Church Jesus was talking about. But you are free to have your own belief.
Yeah, you're right, I don't have any evidence outside of the New Testament, the writings of the first Christians, what we know of what the early church looked like and lived like, and the consistent historical witness of this same church from the 1st century to the 21st. Yeah, it's totally not like there's some huge mountain of primary documents out there on this subject or anything.[/sarcasm]
The foundation of Religion of God is the same. However in every Age, the Religion is renewed so, the falsehood and misinterpretation and addition of doctrines may not overcome the truth.
Your God just can't seem to make the truth stick, can he?
It is not deceive or lie. It was a mystery of God. People were unable to bear it then. God only told them the way they can accept and understand it. There was a wisdom in it.
And the way that they were supposedly able to accept and understand it was completely different from what the truth actually was?
I asked you before, why God didn't say explicitly in Hebrew Scriptures that 'Emmanuel' is Messiah so there would be no debate between Christians and Jews who this Emmanuel prophecy is about?
There is no debate that this is a Messianic prophecy, either on the part of the Jews or on the part of the Christians. The Jews simply disagree with us about whether or not the passage applies to Jesus.
Why Hebrew Scriptures didn't say Messiah is not a Worldly king with no sword, so the Jews in that Age, would not expect a literal worldly king? Did God deceive them? Did God lie?
They knew that the Messiah would come and bring peace to the world and end the oppression of Israel and make Israel a light to the nations, and they knew that the Messiah's reign would be forever, and once the Messiah came, the world would be over, peace would reign, and sin would be no more. The only thing the Jews debated about is
how these prophecies would be fulfilled--either in a political way, as the Pharisees and Sadducees and Zealots claimed, or in a spiritual way, as the Essenes, Qumran community and other mystical Jews foresaw.
Why did God made Pharaoh blind so he cannot see the truth?
Can we say God was therefore (God forbidden) evil?
Pharaoh chose to be blind. God didn't make him blind. When God confronted Pharaoh, God's presence did blind him, but only because he refused to accept the reality of Who God was and what the Pharaoh must do.
It doesn't confuse us if we become free from bias, and free from pre-judging.
We need to delete all the man-made interpretations, and look at the scriptures with a free mind from every bias and fanaticism.
I've done that, and every other person in here arguing in this thread will tell you likewise. There is no such thing as reading the Bible without a filter free from every bias. The very act of reading involves interpreting and filtering things through our own perspective. It's the nature of taking in information.
You keep ignoring that if your interpretation is correct, then the true Messiah must also be a literally worldly king with a sword, not Jesus who got crucified.
And where on earth are you getting that idea?
They did. I have already shown some of them in this thread to icebuddy, and also in other threads. refer to them.
That's really specific. Why don't you at least sum up why Jesus and the angels lied to the Apostles about the nature of Christ's return instead of telling them the truth whem they were open to it.
Not just that. A thief comes secretly and quietly. You only see half-truth about this. Is that intentional?
The Lord compares His coming to a thief because He says we won't know
when He returns. He never says we won't know
how He returns.
Only according to literal interpretations and man-made doctrines.
We have our interpretations from the Apostles themselves. You have just as much evidence of your interpretations coming from your prophet as we have of our interpretations coming from the Apostles.
Not so! Where did I say that?
You imply it with the very fact that the Apostles were forced by God to spread lies about what they experienced and learned. By the time the Apostles died, everyone in all of the Christian Church believed the wrong things about God and about Jesus. You yourself have admitted to as much already. You say that the students of the Apostles didn't understand their own teachers or what they wrote.
