Names?

[Athetotheist]

"And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."
(Matthew 2:23)

Which prophets?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #20]

The discussion here is about almah and almah does not only refer to young women who have had sex, so it's perfectly normal for almah to be used when talking about a virgin. But only that, but sometimes ‘virgin’ is understood to be the meaning as the Jewish scholars show by translating Isaiah 7:14 into Greek as parthenos. So, no, betulah is not the only thing one could use if they wanted to speak of a virgin woman.

Betulah is the only word for referring to a woman's virginity. And the discussion here is about virginity, the sloppy Greek of the Septuagint notwithstanding.

Isaiah 7:14 isn't even part of a messianic prophecy. It's part of a prophecy of the downfall of the kings of Israel and Syria.

Again, that doesn't mean Isaiah 7:14 is about a virgin woman giving birth. It's not in the original context.

That's the only context Matthew has to work with, which is what makes his take on it wrong.

But the Israelites also understood their prophetic writings to have future fulfillments that went beyond the immediate fulfillments in a more general sense (i.e., they didn't approach them in the same hyper-literal way you and other moderns are want to do). Isaiah 7-9, Jeremiah 31, etc. are instances of that.

There is no indication in the Jewish Bible that any prophecy is to be fulfilled more than once, despite "dual fulfillments" invented by Christian apologists.

This doesn't say anything about whether Matthew was to right to see it how he did, but it does say something about how you are getting your conclusion based on misunderstanding how Matthew and his original audiences saw the prophetic writings.

In other words, I read the text and see that Matthew has come up with "fulfillments" which don't fit the prophecies they're supposed to fit and I refuse to spin-doctor the inconsistency to make it look like it works.

Yes, I agree that it's not 100% certain that the massacre happened and it's not 100% certain that the Christian Bible is divinely inspired.

Then you have to agree that no one can be faulted for doubting it.


Matthew is claiming that an alleged massacre in Bethlehem fulfilled a prophecy which (1.) wasn't about Bethlehem and (2.) wasn't about a massacre.

If we assume your hyper-literal take, sure, but why do that? Calling it 'spinning a loop-de-loop" is just empty rhetoric; I'm interested in the reasons we hold the beliefs we do. Why isn't Matthew claiming that the massacre in Bethlehem is an example of the same kind of thing that went on back in the exile times? If you would have asked him what Jeremiah 31:15 is about, why wouldn't he talk about both the exile and fulfillment of it by Israel returning from exile as well as how he thought the massacre spoke to the current state of Israelites going through the same kind of thing?

It's so tiresome when apologists repeatedly throw the noodle-limp "hyper-literal" accusation at anyone who points out parts of the Bible which are just flat-out inaccurate. It's still just an attempt to make the Bible unfalsifiable so its inconsistencies can be conveniently ignored.

Matthew isn't commenting on "exile and fulfillment". He's claiming that texts in the Tanakh prophesy things which they don't prophesy and trying to tie them to the most tenuous references. Hosea 11:1 includes the word "Egypt", so it must be a prophecy about the Messiah in Egypt! Isaiah 7:14 refers to a pregnant woman, so she must be the mother of the Messiah!

If Matthew is on the mark, why doesn't he just quote messianic passages instead of trying to shoehorn Jesus into non-messianic passages? The indications are that Matthew is trying to sell a failed messiah to a desperate Jewish populace.

[The Tanager]

Yes, I agree that it's not 100% certain that the massacre happened and it's not 100% certain that the Christian Bible is divinely inspired.

Then you have to agree that no one can be faulted for doubting it.

Yes, it should be doubted, but it also should be investigated beyond the what's been shared here. But, as an aside, 100% certainty is a standard that we can't get outside of things like definitions and pure mathematics, so if your emphasis is on the lack of certainty, I don't think that goes too far.

It's so tiresome when apologists repeatedly throw the noodle-limp "hyper-literal" accusation at anyone who points out parts of the Bible which are just flat-out inaccurate. It's still just an attempt to make the Bible unfalsifiable so its inconsistencies can be conveniently ignored.

Matthew isn't commenting on "exile and fulfillment". He's claiming that texts in the Tanakh prophesy things which they don't prophesy and trying to tie them to the most tenuous references. Hosea 11:1 includes the word "Egypt", so it must be a prophecy about the Messiah in Egypt! Isaiah 7:14 refers to a pregnant woman, so she must be the mother of the Messiah!

If Matthew is on the mark, why doesn't he just quote messianic passages instead of trying to shoehorn Jesus into non-messianic passages? The indications are that Matthew is trying to sell a failed messiah to a desperate Jewish populace.

Because Matthew understands fulfilled prophecies differently than in a hyper-literal way. Again, the rational principle of charity, if nothing else, should lead us away from your take that Matthew is an idiot trying to fool people with things that wouldn't fool them. And that says nothing about whether Matthew was right or not about how things went down; it's just about actually understanding what people mean. You can use rhetoric to dismiss that, but what stands is the substance of what you've said for your case and what I've said for my case. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and allowing space for me to share mine, while challenging them.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #22]

It's so tiresome when apologists repeatedly throw the noodle-limp "hyper-literal" accusation at anyone who points out parts of the Bible which are just flat-out inaccurate.

Because Matthew understands fulfilled prophecies differently than in a hyper-literal way.

Circular argument.

Again, the rational principle of charity, if nothing else, should lead us away from your take

Translation: "Aw, c'mon.....give him a break!"

Matthew isn't owed any slack just because you want to give it to him.

that Matthew is an idiot trying to fool people with things that wouldn't fool them.

"Idiot" is your word, not mine.

Still, he was going out on quite a limb. You've been trying to defend him by crediting him with knowing how ancient Israelites thought, but if he knew that much about it he should have known that they wouldn't buy into the idea of their Messiah being a semi-divine figure born to a mortal woman like one of the demigods of the neighboring pagans. That would have put them off faster than a platter of pork fritters and shellfish.

And the author, whoever he actually was [most likely not Matthew the apostle], was writing to a Greek-speaking audience apparently after the fall of Jerusalem. Might he have been trying to make the Jesus movement more appealing to the aforementioned pagans by positing a similarity between him and their deities?