Was Jesus the messiah of the Hebrew bible?

[Nickman]

Cholland said he would like to debate this point so here it is.

Was Jesus the the messiah as prescribed by the Hebrew bible?

What prophecies does he fulfill and why?

Can he be shown to not fulfill the Hebrew text?

Cholland your up.....

[Nickman]

1.Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem: Micah5:1
2.Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah:Genesis 49:10
3.Messiah would present himself by riding on an ass: Zechariah 9:9
4.Messiah would arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple: Daniel 9:24-27
5.Messiah's life would match a particular description, including suffering, silence at his arrest and trial, death and burial in a rich man's tomb, and resurrection: Isaiah 52:13/53:12
In detail as to lineage, birthplace, time, and lifestyle, Jesus matched the Messianic expectations of the OT. The record of this fulfillment is to be found in the pages of the NT. But several other factors combine to further substantiate the Messiahship of Jesus.

Lets see if what you have posted matches up. You have made the claim that Jesus actually fulfilled the requirements and have listed those "prophecies" so this gives me a good of information to work with. I will address each topic and verse one by one.

1. Messiah born in Bethlehem
Micah 5:1

[a]Marshal your troops now, city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israels ruler
on the cheek with a rod.

2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.

So far its states that the Messiah will come out of Bethlehem but not necessarily born in Bethlehem. In any event this person will be from Bethlehem. So, according to the gospels Jesus fit this prediction. One must realize that the gospels were written after the prophecies and we cannot verify their authenticity. We cannot verify either way if they were fraudulent or not. The gospels seem to wiggle around in an attempt to make Jesus born there. Jesus was not from Bethlehem. He was born there. Micah alludes to someone who is from there and not necessarily by birth. Jesus was not from there. He was a last minute birth and then his family took him elsewhere.

3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.

None of the Israelites that were captive in foreign lands returned to join the Israelites when Jesus was alive. This is a big problem for Jesus because the Messiah was supposed to be a political leader who would stop the captivity and bring Israel back to be a nation by gathering those captive in foreign lands. This never happened with Jesus.

4 He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.

This never happened with Jesus

5 And he will be our peace
when the Assyrians invade our land
and march through our fortresses.
We will raise against them seven shepherds,
even eight commanders,
6 who will rule[c] the land of Assyria with the sword,
the land of Nimrod with drawn sword.[d]
He will deliver us from the Assyrians
when they invade our land
and march across our borders.

Jesus never delivered the Israelites from the Assyrians and he never will because the Assyrians don't exist anymore. In order to understand the Messiah we must read the context and not pick and choose. You seem to pick the things that Jesus did fulfill such as his Bethlehem birth, but the most important things as I have listed in Micah were not fulfilled.

2. Messiah from tribe of Judah
Here you use Genesis 49:10 and rip it out of context. Genesis 49 is about Jacob blessing his children. When he gets to his son Judah he makes mention that Judah's lineage will be the ruling lineage. From this lineage one will rule who's right it is to do so. The nation's obedience will be his. This never happened with Jesus. There is no mention of a second coming either.

Judah, your brothers will praise you;
your hand will be on the neck of your enemies;
your fathers sons will bow down to you.
9 You are a lions cub, Judah;
you return from the prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down,
like a lioness"who dares to rouse him?
10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the rulers staff from between his feet,[c]
until he to whom it belongs[d] shall come
and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
11 He will tether his donkey to a vine,
his colt to the choicest branch;
he will wash his garments in wine,
his robes in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes will be darker than wine,
his teeth whiter than milk.[e]

3. Riding an ass Zechariah 9:9 Again here you rip the verse out of context and also fail to realize Jesus rode two animals which is not what the verse states. If you continue to read Zechariah 9 there are things that Jesus didn't do, which I highlighted below.

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth

.

4. Daniel 9:24-27 Many people have tried to make Jesus fit the 70/7s prophecy. There are dozens of interpretations. No one has ever been able to do it.

5. Isaiah 52:13 and 53:12

52:13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him[c]"
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness"
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,[d]
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand

This makes no mention of Jesus or him being beaten. Isaiah 51-53 all speak of Israel who is the personified suffering servant who is humiliated, suffered, disfigured beyond recognition due to their captivity. It is not Messianic at all. Israel fits the description given by Isaiah to the exact letter.

What we have is christians who take the least important parts of the messiah such as birth, tribe and the like yet disregard the "meat and taters" portions that tell of what the Messiah was supposed to do. Then they wonder why Jews don't believe in Jesus. Although Jesus does meet the smallest requirements such as birth and lineage he does not meet the requirements that actually matter. That would be the actions the messiah is supposed to perform. Jesus doesn't fulfill any of these important aspects of being the messiah. To add, the Messiah wasn't supposed to KNOW he was the messiah and proclaim himself as such. He was just a man, political leader that would bring Israel back into their promised land and would rule over all nations no longer to be taken captive again. Jesus doesn't do any of this. The messiah was not supposed to be resurrected or any of the things that the gospels authors wrote about Jesus.

[The Tongue]

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]Neither Matthew nor Jerome were translating from the Hebrew. Parthenos and virgo can mean virgin, there being no other word in the respective languages for it. Matthew says that Joseph was not the father and mentions no other father but the Holy Spirit, he meant virgin.

You are correct in stating that Parthenos and virgo can mean virgin, there being no other word in the respective languages for it. But let me repeat, They CAN mean Virgin. But ONLY, If that is somehow implied, such as the time that Mary, the young Parthenos=unmarried female, implied that she was still a virgin, by saying to the angel, three months before she was found to be pregnant, that she, at the time that she spoke with the angel, had never known a man.

As to your erroneous statement that Jerome did not translate from the Hebrew, I would advise you to do a little more research on that subject. Jeromes Latin translation of the Bible, was from the original Hebrew (see *Bible, Latin Translations). Together with his translation of the New Testament from the Greek Septuagint to Latin, this was accepted by the universal church of Constantine as the official version of the Scriptures.

I would advise you to do a little more research. Jerome only used Hebrew sources for the bulk of the Old Testament. The Gospels, including Matthew, were from Old Latin sources with reference to early Greek sources. In those Old Latin sources, Jerome would have seen the word virgo in Matthew, which I have already shown to be the correct Latin translation of the Greek parthenos,which he would have seen in the early Greek sources.

The Vulgate has a compound text that is not entirely the work of Jerome. Its components include:

Jerome's independent translation from the Hebrew: the books of the Hebrew Bible, usually not including his translation of the Psalms. This was completed in 405.

Translation from the Greek of Theodotion by Jerome: The three additions to the Book of Daniel; Song of the Three Children, Story of Susanna, and The Idol Bel and the Dragon. The Song of the Three Children was retained within the narrative of Daniel, the other two additions Jerome moved to the end of the book.

Translation from the Septuagint by Jerome: the Rest of Esther. Jerome gathered all these additions together at the end of the book of Esther.

Translation from the Hexaplar Septuagint by Jerome: his Gallican version of the Book of Psalms. Jerome's Hexaplaric revisions of other books of Old Testament continued to circulate in Italy for several centuries, but only Job and fragments of other books survive.

Free translation by Jerome from a secondary Aramaic version: Tobias and Judith.

Revision by Jerome of the Old Latin, corrected with reference to the oldest Greek manuscripts available: the Gospels.

Old Latin, more or less revised by a person or persons unknown: Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, 3 Esdras, Acts, Epistles, and the Apocalypse.

Old Latin, wholly unrevised: Epistle to the Laodiceans, Prayer of Manasses, 4 Esdras, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]Now, I am challenging you to provide sources for your claim that your hypothetical second Joseph is a different person from the Joseph described by Matthew as the husband of Mary and that he is the half-brother of Mary.

No my dear girl, I am challenging you to provide biblical documentation that the two completely different genealogies in the New Testament relate to the one man by the name Joseph. One being that of Joseph the son of Jacob, who is about the 24th descendant of Solomon and a descendant of the cursed Jehoiachin, the other being that of Jesus, whose mother was Mary the daughter of Heli, who is the biological grandfather of Jesus, who, according to Luke, had sired a son, who was also named Joseph, a very common name, then as now, who is about the 40th descendant of Nathan the son of Bathsheba, who was the adopted son of King David.

Now then, either reveal your evidence that the bible according to you, is speaking of the same Joseph, or admit that you are once again, only presenting your own erroneous opinion.

I could simply refer to the thousands of sources that refer to Joseph in the singular with no mention of there being more than one. But instead let us take a look at the Gospels and see if we see any indication of their being more than one other than the disparities in the genealogies.

Matthew " nope. Matthew uses his genealogy to establish Jesus as the heir of David via the marriage of Joseph ben Jacob to Mary. If there is another Joseph around who is the biological father of Jesus, a Joseph who according to Luke is also a Davidic descendent, why does Matthew need to do this? Because there is no other Joseph.

Luke " nope. Luke says that Joseph ben Heli is NOT the biological father of Jesus and stresses that God is the actual father of Jesus, this idea being completely in accordance with Matthew. Luke makes no mention of there being any Joseph prior to ben Heli. Since Luke traces the history of the family from the conception of Jesus on up, why does he not ever mention this switching of the two Josephs? Because there is no other Joseph.

As I said way back when, the Gospels writers each had their own agendas and wrote what they wrote to support those agendas. Luke wrote a rather different story from Matthew in many ways. The genealogical discrepancies are only part of that big picture.

Sowhere is your source that says there are two Josephs? The link you provided upstream does NOT say that. It talks consistently about a single Joseph as I have documented upstream.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]I could simply refer to the thousands of sources that refer to Joseph in the singular with no mention of there being more than one. But instead let us take a look at the Gospels and see if we see any indication of their being more than one other than the disparities in the genealogies.

There is Joseph ben Jacob, whose marriage to Mary was not consummated until after she had given birth to Jesus, who the people believed was the son of Joseph ben Heli.

There is Joseph ben Heli, the son of Matthat whose 1st wife was Elizabeth of Jerusalem, whose royal Greek name was the Maccabee Princess Alexandra II, and Matthat was also a Prince of David as were all the descendants of King Davids Adopted son Nathan the son of Bathsheba.

Irrelevant to your opinionated conjectures as to Lukes statement that the people thought that Jesus was the son of Joseph ben Heli, you cannot deny that Luke mentions that Heli had a son by the name Joseph who was the grandson of Matthat a heir to the throne of David, whose 1st wife was Elizabeth of Jerusalem, whose royal Greek name was the Maccabee Princess Alexandra II.

There are also those progenitors of Joseph ben Jacob and Joseph ben Heli the half brother of Mary, who are also named Joseph.

We have Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, one of the two men nominated to take the place of Judas Iscariot.

There is also Joseph the son of Mary, who I believe is one and the same as Joseph of Arimathea, who laid the body of his half brother Jesus, in his own FAMILY tomb, which had never been used.

Then there is Joseph the Levite from Cyprus who was surnamed Barnabas and whose sisters son was Young John the son of Mary, who had been surnamed Mark which means Hammer, who I believe, can be identified as John the beloved disciple who Jesus had surnamed Son of Thunder" and had entrusted to the care of his mother, Mary the daughter of Heli.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]Matthew " nope. Matthew uses his genealogy to establish Jesus as the heir of David via the marriage of Joseph ben Jacob to Mary.

Being an heir by adoption to Joseph ben Jacob of the cursed line of Jehoiachin, may have saved Mary and her son from the pogroms of Herod the great, who, knowing that Joseph ben Jacob had no legitimate claim to the throne of David, then any child born to Mary who was betrothed to him as a small girl, could never be a threat to his throne.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]If there is another Joseph around who is the biological father of Jesus, a Joseph who according to Luke is also a Davidic descendent, why does Matthew need to do this? Because there is no other Joseph.

Matthew was merely recording the genealogy of Joseph ben Jacob, whose marriage to Mary was not consummated until after the birth of her child "Jesus", who according to prophecy and the apostles, was the successor to King Davids throne.

Isaiah 9: 6-7; A child is born to us! A son is given to us! And he will be our ruler. He will be called, Wonderful Councilor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. His royal power will continue to grow; his kingdom will always be at peace. He will rule as Davids successor.

Acts 13; 23; It was Jesus, a descendant of David, whom God made the savior of Israel, as he had promised.

Jesus was made High priest in the order of Melchizedek who was both King and High priest. Psalms 110: 4; The Lord made a solemn promise and will not take it back: You will be a priest forever according to the priestly order of Melchizedek.

Hebrew 5: 7-10; In his life on earth Jesus made his prayers and requests with loud cries and tears to God who could save him from death. Because he was humble and devoted, God heard him. But even though he was A son of God, (Not Gods Son, or THE son of God, but A son of God, check it out in the Appendix of Strongs Concordance, or The King James, Amplified, or The Revised Standard translations. all Israelites are sons of God according to Gods word, see Psalms 82: 6; You are gods, I said; all of you are sons of the Most High.) he learned through suffering to be obedient, when he was made perfect he became the only source through whom salvation could be gained from our Lord God and saviour, by those who believed his words as spoken through his obedient servant, who he chose from among the people and sent to speak in his name, See Deuteronomy 18: 18; and acts 3: 22.

Hebrew 5: 5; Our Lord God and saviour made Jesus high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, not that Jesus took upon himself the honour of being high priest, instead, the Lord made him high priest with these words as he came up from the baptismal waters, You are my Son, THIS DAY I have begotten thee.

King=Judah High Priest=Levi, I gave you a clue in my post #111 and even suggested that you chew it over for a while, in the hope that you might have been able to digest the more solid spiritual food, but apparently you are not yet able to do so.

"Post #111: In Luke 3: 27; Three of the ancestors of Jesus the grandson of Alexander Helios (Heli) are Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, who is the son of Neriah.

In Matthew 1: 12; it is written; Jehioachin begat Shealtiel, who begat Zerubbabel etc. it is here that we find a connection between the two genetic lines.

Tamar, was a princess of the House of Solomon and as a child she was betrothed to Neriah, a descendant of the House of Nathan the adopted son of King David. Neriah was the 21st in descent from King David.

King Jechoiachin was to later marry Tamar of the House of Solomon, who bore to him a son by the name Zedekiah, but he died prematurely as a young child.

During this period, around the time of the Babylonian captivity, the majority of the royal blood line of King David, either died prematurely, were executed or assassinated etc, until the entire royal blood line of King Solomon was threatened with extinction.

The sons of Tamar, who were sired by her first husband, Neriah a descendant of Nathan the adopted son of King David, were adopted by Jehoiachin, and although the Talmud states, "Whoever brings up an orphan in his home is regarded...as though the child had been born to him." (Sanhedrin 119b), through his ancestor Jehoiachin, Joseph the son of Jacob, had no claim to the throne of King David.

Now Ill just let you chew over that for a little while."

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]Luke " nope. Luke says that Joseph ben Heli is NOT the biological father of Jesus and stresses that God is the actual father of Jesus, this idea being completely in accordance with Matthew.

Nope, Luke states that the people thought that Jesus was the son of Joseph the Levite son of Heli, a distant descendant of Nathan the priest and adopted son of King David. If you believe that Luke states that Jesus (Who is the son of Mary and her half brother Joseph who were both sired by Heli) is the son of the Holy Spirit, then you must also believe that Isaac, the son of Abraham and his half sister Sarah, who were both sired by Terah, is also the son of the Holy Spirit, For both were the promised seed of Abraham who were born of the working of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians 4: 29; Amplified version: Yet as at that time the child born according to the flesh (Ishmael), despised and persecuted him (Isaac) who was born according to the promise and the workings of the Holy Spirit, etc.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]......... Luke makes no mention of there being any Joseph prior to ben Heli.

Luke reveals to you that Heli had a son by the name Joseph who was the biological Grandson of Matthat whose 1st wife was Elizabeth of Jerusalem, whose royal Greek name was the Maccabee Princess Alexandra II, and Matthat was also a Prince of David as were all the descendants of King Davids Adopted son Nathan the Levite priest who was the son of Bathsheba, the daughter of Ammiel, the son of Obed-Edom who was a descendant of Moses, who was to be to Aaron as God on earth.

You are exposing your true self to those who browse these threads by continuing to argue that Joseph ben Jacob, who is the about the 24th descendant of Solomon, is the same person as Joseph ben Heli, who is about the 40th descendant of Nathan the Levite priest and adopted son of King David.

The genetic line of Joseph ben Jacob descends from Solomon, through Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, who are the sons of Tamar, who was a princess of the House of Solomon, and of Neriah, a descendant of the House of Nathan the adopted son of King David.

The genetic line of Joseph the son of Marys father Heli, descends from Nathan through Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, who are the sons of Tamar, who was a princess of the House of Solomon, and of Neriah, a descendant of the House of Nathan the adopted son of King David.

[ThatGirlagain wrote]......Since Luke traces the history of the family from the conception of Jesus on up, why does he not ever mention this switching of the two Josephs? Because there is no other Joseph.

No my dear friend, Luke does not ever mention any switching of the two Josephs, because they are two independent and entirely different genealogical records, one of Joseph ben Jacob and the other of Joseph ben Heli the father of Mary, who adopted Young John who Jesus had surnamed Son of Thunder.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]As I said way back when, the Gospels writers each had their own agendas and wrote what they wrote to support those agendas. Luke wrote a rather different story from Matthew in many ways.

Of course, each gospel writer recorded their accounts as they heard it from others as did Luke and Matthew, or either remembered it, as did John the beloved who walked and talked with Jesus, and Mark, who is believed to have been the son of Peter, who both make no mention of the physical birth of the man Jesus, seeing that physical birth, as being totally irrelevant to the story of Salvation which began with the spiritual birth of Jesus, when he was filled with the spirit of our Lord and savior and then declared to begotten of God's spirit.

If Jesus was not born of the flesh as all human beings are, but was supposedly born of a virgin without male semen having been introduced into her uterus, then this would have been the greatest of all miracles, and would have been shouted from the roof tops by all four gospel writers and yet we see that Mark, who is believed to have been the son of Peter, and John, the beloved disciple, who walked and talked with Jesus, ignore the physical birth of Jesus as being totally irrelevant to the story of salvation and begin their account of He, who was sent in the name of the Lord, with the Baptism of the man Jesus, when he was born of the spirit that descended upon him in the form of a dove and the heavenly voice was heard to say, You are my beloved in whom I am well pleased, Today I have become your father.

Matthew merely translates the Hebrew, Isaiah 7: 14; A young unmarried woman who IS pregnant will have a son and will name him Immanuel, and then emphasises the fact that "Immanuel" means "God is with us."

While Luke simply reveals that the young unmarried 14 year old Mary, was still a virgin 3 months before she was found to be pregnant. Due to her obedience to our indwelling ancestral Father spirit, she conceived in her womb the child of the father, chosen by the Holy Spirit, which act of obedience by the handmaid of the Lord, was concealed in the shadows beneath the wings of the Lord of Spirits.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]........ The genealogical discrepancies are only part of that big picture.

There are no genealogical discrepancies, the genealogical records in Mathew and Luke are two independent and entirely different genetic lines.

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]Sowhere is your source that says there are two Josephs?

The Bible my dear friend.

Who could possibly believe that the genealogy of Joseph ben Jacob, recorded in Matthew, who married Mary after the birth of her first born son, and who has no immediate genetic connection to Jesus, and who is about the 24 th descendant of Solomon, is the same Genealogy that is recorded in Luke, which is that of Heli the biological grandfather of Jesus and the father of the parents of Jesus the son of Joseph the son of Heli, as believed by the people of his day, which Joseph, who is the biological grandson of Matthat whose 1st wife was Elizabeth of Jerusalem, whose royal Greek name was the Maccabee Princess Alexandra II, is about the 40 th descendant of Nathan the priest, who is the half brother to Solomon the king, the two ancestral sons of David, upon whose throne will sit Jesus the "KING and HIGH PRIEST," who will rule the world in righteousness.

[ThatGirlAgain]

I see no stereotyping going on.

We are offered ...

All of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews, and they did accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

... from which we are to infer what?

From which you are to infer that all of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews. It does NOT say that all Jews were followers of Jesus. That might be stereotyping. If I were to say that all of Buddha's earliest followers were Indians, would that be stereotyping? But I have presented extensive arguments that all of the earliest follower's of Jesus were indeed Jews. No stereotyping going on at all.

[Goat]

1.Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem: Micah5:1
2.Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah:Genesis 49:10
3.Messiah would present himself by riding on an ass: Zechariah 9:9
4.Messiah would arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple: Daniel 9:24-27
5.Messiah's life would match a particular description, including suffering, silence at his arrest and trial, death and burial in a rich man's tomb, and resurrection: Isaiah 52:13/53:12
In detail as to lineage, birthplace, time, and lifestyle, Jesus matched the Messianic expectations of the OT. The record of this fulfillment is to be found in the pages of the NT. But several other factors combine to further substantiate the Messiahship of Jesus.

Lets see if what you have posted matches up. You have made the claim that Jesus actually fulfilled the requirements and have listed those "prophecies" so this gives me a good of information to work with. I will address each topic and verse one by one.

1. Messiah born in Bethlehem
Micah 5:1

[a]Marshal your troops now, city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israels ruler
on the cheek with a rod.

2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.

So far its states that the Messiah will come out of Bethlehem but not necessarily born in Bethlehem. In any event this person will be from Bethlehem. So, according to the gospels Jesus fit this prediction. One must realize that the gospels were written after the prophecies and we cannot verify their authenticity. We cannot verify either way if they were fraudulent or not. The gospels seem to wiggle around in an attempt to make Jesus born there. Jesus was not from Bethlehem. He was born there. Micah alludes to someone who is from there and not necessarily by birth. Jesus was not from there. He was a last minute birth and then his family took him elsewhere.

3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.

None of the Israelites that were captive in foreign lands returned to join the Israelites when Jesus was alive. This is a big problem for Jesus because the Messiah was supposed to be a political leader who would stop the captivity and bring Israel back to be a nation by gathering those captive in foreign lands. This never happened with Jesus.

4 He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.

This never happened with Jesus

5 And he will be our peace
when the Assyrians invade our land
and march through our fortresses.
We will raise against them seven shepherds,
even eight commanders,
6 who will rule[c] the land of Assyria with the sword,
the land of Nimrod with drawn sword.[d]
He will deliver us from the Assyrians
when they invade our land
and march across our borders.

Jesus never delivered the Israelites from the Assyrians and he never will because the Assyrians don't exist anymore. In order to understand the Messiah we must read the context and not pick and choose. You seem to pick the things that Jesus did fulfill such as his Bethlehem birth, but the most important things as I have listed in Micah were not fulfilled.

I will point out that Bethlehem is being refereed to as a clan in Micah. .... and it just so happens to be from the clan David was from. Now, having the weird and strange story of Jesus' parents traveling to have him born in the town of Bethelham shows the tall tail of the Gospels.

[ThatGirlAgain]

[ThatGirlAgain wrote]I have no idea what you are saying. Who is this bride of the Anti-Christ? If this is supposed to be the Catholic Church, the official Article of Faith is the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, which James described. Who is doing this condemning of James?

The universal church of Constantine, the mother of most of those who profess to be christians, is united with the spirit of the Anti-Christ, who refuses to acknowledge that Jesus came as a human being, and who claims that he was not born of the seed of Adam, is the Bride of the Anti-Christ and the mother of all those lesser denominational daughters that were spawned of her spirit=Words/teachings, before breaking away from their mother body, and SHE, the universal church of Constantine, the bride of the Anti-Christ, has always rejected the Protoevangelium of James and to this day, the R.C.C, regards it as fraudulent.

You are mistaken on the first point. The doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that Jesus became entirely human while remaining entirely divine.

III. TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN

464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.



IV. HOW IS THE SON OF GOD MAN?

470 Because "human nature was assumed, not absorbed", in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ's human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ's human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from "one of the Trinity". The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity

Catechism of the Catholic Church
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/a ... 22a3p1.htm

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Apocrypha says that The term apocryphal in connection with special Gospels must be understood as bearing no more unfavourable an import than "uncanonical". In discussing the Protoevangelium of James it says The birth, education, and marriage of the Blessed Virgin are described in the first eleven chapters and these are the source of various traditions current among the faithful. To say that the Church rejects the Protoevangelium is not accurate. It is considered a work of fiction but reflecting early beliefs. The Church considers the virginity of Mary to be a very early idea and even considers the perpetual virginity of Mary to be completely factual, which idea is reflected in the Protoevangelium.

496 From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived "by the Holy Spirit without human seed". The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own.

499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it." And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the "Ever-virgin".

Catechism of the Catholic Church
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/a ... 22a3p2.htm

[ThatGirlAgain].You are mistaken on the first point. The doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that Jesus became entirely human while remaining entirely divine.

And it my belief that only the nave and gullible would believe the false doctrines of R.C.C,. which teachings have nothing to do with the Holy Scriptures, but with the traditions that had been handed down from the old Roman religion of Isis their heavenly Queen, who conceived the godchild Horus by her brother Osirus, the god from the lower of inner world. Please dont tell me that she has sucked you in with her falsehoods?

Let me try to understand what you are saying. First you say that the Catholic Church teaches some kind of docetism, that Jesus was not really human but only seemed that way. Then when I point out that, with documentation, that this is not at all what the Church teaches, you now consider that a false doctrine. Might we need to consider the notion that you are categorically opposed to whatever the Catholic Church might say, even when you do not know what it is?

I fail to see what discussing the cult of Isis has to do with whether Matthew intended parthenos to carry the meaning of virgin. I hope you are not trying to say that Isis, who was already married to Osiris, was a virgin when she gave birth to Horus. A key element of the Isis-Osiris tale involves the definite use of the phallus of Osiris to impregnate Isis. (Ref)

As Christianity spread it did indeed syncretize elements from other religions. Many works of art depict Mary and the infant Jesus in a way similar to art depicting Isis and the infant Horus. However these do not seem to appear until the 5th century after the cult of Isis was outlawed. It hardly seems likely that Mary derived from Isis. Imagining a scripture obsessed, observant Jew like Matthew importing Egyptian ideas to try to sell to an observant Jewish audience sounds rather fishy as well.

The worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, however, lived on in a Christianized context as the popular image of Mary suckling the infant son Jesus from the fifth century onward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis


There was a great expansion of the cult of Mary after the Council of Ephesus in 431, when her status as Theotokos ("God-bearer") was confirmed; this had been a subject of some controversy until then, though mainly for reasons to do with arguments over the nature of Christ. In mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, dating from 432-40, just after the council, she is not yet shown with a halo, and she is also not shown in Nativity scenes at this date, though she is included in the Adoration of the Magi.

By the next century the iconic depiction of the Virgin enthroned carrying the infant Christ was established,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art)#Early_images

After all this time are you still under the impression that I am a Catholic? Read my usergroup list. As I have said often around here, I stopped believing by the age of 13 but am very knowledgeable about the religion.

And before you again state that Constantine had nothing to do with the actual establishment of the universal church,

I never said any such thing. I said that Constantine had nothing to do with the contents of the Bible. (ref)

That was in response to your claim that:

The word Virgin in reference to the mother of Jesus was first introduced in the 5th century Latin Bible The Vulgate, due mainly to the effort of Jerome who was commissioned to make a revision of the books that had already been translated to Latin by, in most cases, persons unknown, and with those books translated by Jerome himself, which revision was completed in 405 A.D. became the official bible of the universal church that had been established by its unorthodox and non-christian champion, King Constantine, who had his father Constantius deified and was accorded the same honour himself after his death.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 698#500698

let me quote this from some book that Ive read somewhere: I think it may have come from Ian Wilsons JESUS The Evidence.

When Christianity was illegal and persecuted, the Christians were united against a common enemy. With the lid off, differences of opinion began to be voiced and very loudly, even to point of rioting and assassinations. Bishops were excommunicating each other all over the place, often enforced with mobs or hired thugs. The main hotbed of this civil unrest was Alexandria. Egypt was the primary source of both grain and tax revenue for Constantines Empire and Alexandria was its main port. Serious civil unrest there was a dangerous thing. Likewise, disturbances taking place in the more easterly regions of the Empire were an open invitation to the newly resurgent Persians.

A main point of contention behind all this trouble was the nature of Jesus, with opinions ranging from him being totally human to almost totally divine. Constantine invited all the bishops to a council at Nicaea to try to establish commonality and put an end to the divisive bickering.

Although there was a wide range of opinions, they fell into two main categories, whether Jesus was primarily human or primarily divine. The former fit well with the Greek tradition of humanism and made Christianity a more personal matter. An implication of that is that authority would be local, residing with the individual bishops. The latter fit in with the idea of central control by the Roman bishop (and by implication the Roman Emperor). It is no surprise that Constantine pushed the latter

You quote an extensive piece of text but you are not sure where you got it from?

Let me help you

YOU GOT IT FROM ME!!!

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 14=#492614

Come on, you do not copy and paste text from a post on this site and forget where you got it from.

In any case the point you are trying to support, that I supposedly said that Constantine had nothing to do with establishing the church, is totally erroneous as I demonstrated above.

Matthew is not concerned as to where the holy family actually lived, only that the child was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, he then skips forward in time, to speak of the wise men, who are believed to have been Astronomer/Astrologers from Mesopotamia, who had seen the star in the east, that they believed had heralded the birth of the promised Messianic King of Israel, and even if they had left their own country that very day, to travel to Jerusalem, we know from biblical records that it would have taken them some four months to reach there, and by then, the family, according to Luke, had returned to their home in Nazareth.

The most likely scenario is, that the wise men saw the triple conjunction of Jupiter the king star, with Mars the God of war, and Saturn, the Golden age on earth, this was in 6 BC, and would have been the sign that heralded the birth of the promised King and successor to the throne of David the warrior king, who would subdue all nations and bring in a golden age of peace on the earth.

But as Herod died in 4 BC, shortly after the slaughter of the innocents, which was immediately after the wise men were warned of what was going to occur and were told not to return to Herod and reveal the child's whereabouts as promised, they left the town of Nazareth, which was only spitting distance from Bethlehem of Galilee, which town today, is called "Beitlahm," and returned home by a different route from that by which they had travelled to Israel.

It would appear that the comet of 5 BC, was the deciding factor to convince them to travel to Jerusalem, to pay homage to the promised King, who had been born in Israel.

Here is a biblical example of how long it took Ezra to travel from Babylonia to Jerusalem, Ezra 7: 8-9; They left Babylonia on the first day of the first month, and with Gods help they arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month.

I am quite familiar with the interpretation of Matthews star from the viewpoint of an astronomer of those days. In fact I made a post on it just before Christmas last year, and followed up with several more posts in that thread.

According to the author of the book I cited in that post, a professional astronomer named Kidger, camels can travel at 20 miles a day across desert. He was speaking from his own personal experience in that region.

Barnes Bible Commentary says this about Ezra 7:9

9. For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him.

The direct distance of Babylon from Jerusalem is about 520 miles; and the circuitous route by Carchemish and the Orontes valley, which was ordinarily taken by armies or large bodies of men, is about 900 miles. The time occupied in the journey is long, and is perhaps to be accounted for by the dangers alluded to in Ezra 8:22, Ezra 8:31.

http://barnes.biblecommenter.com/ezra/7.htm

Ezra 8 does indeed give insight as to why the journey took so long. There were a vast number of people involved including women and children and they were carrying large amounts of treasure bound for the Temple. The fear of robbers, in the verses mentioned by Barnes, would also argue that they would take the out of sight route that armies took. A camel caravan in the late 1st century CE going directly across the desert would presumably be much faster. Kidger estimated that about 6 weeks or so would be needed for preparation and travel.

Kidger argues that the supposed 5 BC comet was actually a nova. The Chinese records seem to indicate that the object stayed in the same part of the sky for a few months, whereas a comet would very noticeably move across the sky in that timeframe. Also the Chinese describe it as a hairy star rather than a broom star (a comet with a tail). The hairy star appellation could mean a comet before it sprouts a tail when it approaches the sun. Or it could mean a star bright enough to appear to have spikes to the naked eye. For a comet to be visible but still not have a tail for months afterward is quite unlikely.

Luke is more concerned with the approximate 2 month period that the family was in Bethlehem of Judaea. He speaks of the birth of the child in the stable of an Inn, and the visit of the shepherds, who were out in the fields, where they would not have been in the middle of winter of late December, where they saw the baby in the manger wrapped in swaddling cloth etc. There is no mention of any wise men there.

Luke 2: 21; A week after Jesus was born he was circumcised according to the law of Moses. Then CAME THE TIME according to the Law of Moses, for Mary to perform the ceremony of purification as the law of Moses commanded.

The time for the ceremony of purification to be performed is found in Leviticus 12: 3-4; On the eighth day the male child shall be circumcised. Then it will be thirty three days more until she is ritually clean from her loss of blood and then can she enter the tent/temple and perform the ceremony of purification.

After she had performed everything According to the law of Moses some 33 days after the baby was circumcised, they returned to the home of Mary in Nazareth, to where the wise men would later travel some months later, and shower the young child with gifts, which included Gold, which apparently the family did not have when Mary offered the two pigeons at the ceremony of purification. Leviticus 12: 8; poor families who cannot afford a lamb shall bring two doves or two pigeons one of which, would be used as the burnt offering etc.

As it has already been stated, even if the wise men had left their country of origin in the east, on the day that they had first sighted the heavenly phenomenon that had heralded the birth of Jesus, which is more that highly unlikely, they would not have reached Jerusalem until at the very least, some two month after Mary had returned to Nazareth.

I reject the traditional doctrines of the universal church of Constantine, and believe the Holy Scriptures.

You are presuming that both Matthew and Luke are telling literally accurate stories. I make no such assumption. Luke tells an entirely different nativity story than Matthew just as he presents an entirely different genealogy and a very different story at many places in his Gospel.

You say that you believe the Holy Scriptures. The last time I looked Matthew was part of the Holy Scriptures. What exactly are you saying?

[ThatGirlAgain]

I will point out that Bethlehem is being refereed to as a clan in Micah. .... and it just so happens to be from the clan David was from. Now, having the weird and strange story of Jesus' parents traveling to have him born in the town of Bethelham shows the tall tail of the Gospels.

Matthew has Mary give birth in Bethehem and they do not move to Nazareth until after the sojourn in Egypt to escape Herod. They go to Nazareth instead of back to Bethlehem because Joseph is afraid of Archelaus, Herods son and successor. This fulfills some obscure prophecy about Jesus being called a Nazarean. (See Matthew 2)

Luke has Joseph take the pregnant Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem because of a census decree. The reference is to a real census, the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. This census was for tax purposes but there is no record of people needing to travel. Josephus tells us that this led to the Revolt of Judas of Galilee and the founding of the Zealot movement. (Ref)

In contrast to the indirect reference to a rebellion (and by extension to the disastrous Zealot led First Revolt of 66 CE), Luke has angels talking of peace. (See Luke 2) This is part of the program started by Mark of disassociating Jesus from the ill fated First Revolt and (IMO) Lukes own program of opposing Matthews strong association of Jesus with Judaism and thereby in the popular mind with a terrible war.

Tall tales? Yes, but purposeful ones.

[cnorman18]

Greetings to all
Firstly I would like to apologize to any member in this forum if any thing that I say may cause hurt to any person....

Others seem to be doing an excellent job of replying to this post, so I think I'll just sit this one out after making the two following observations:

(1) First, I would point out, once again, that the nature and identifying characteristics of the Jewish Messiah, like all other teachings and traditions of the Jewish religion, are and ought to be determined by the Jewish people and the Jewish people alone, without the interference of others. Therefore, whether or not Jesus was the Jewish Messiah is a question that can be answered only by us; others are not entitled to a vote. They are entitled to their opinions, of course, but those opinions are no more relevant to Judaism or the Jewish people than a Jew's opinion of the authority and legitimacy of the Papacy is relevant to the Roman Catholic Church or to Catholics.

(2) This post was lifted, in its entirety and without attribution, from the "Jews for Jesus" website, here. Any remarks about "bias" would be superfluous, I think; that observation alone should be sufficient. A pretty succinct Jewish response to this material can be found at the "Jews for Judaism" website, here.

This sort of argument typically arrogates the right to overrule and replace the actual teachings of the Jewish religion with flatly contradictory Christian teachings, while either tacitly or openly claiming that the Jewish people have either been (a) too dumb to understand their own Scriptures for two thousand years, or (b) consciously lying about them, as seems to be implied here. I regard both of those claims as -- shall we say -- unwarranted.

Carry on -- but with the understanding that this issue is thoroughly settled as far as the Jewish people are concerned, and has been for two thousand years. It's hard to see how it would matter to others.

[McCulloch]

Carry on -- but with the understanding that this issue is thoroughly settled as far as the Jewish people are concerned, and has been for two thousand years. It's hard to see how it would matter to others.

It is an important issue to many Christians and you ought to know that. For many, the central apologetic for Christianity is that he is the promised Messiah, the Son of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That the Jews deny this and have consistently denied this for about two thousand years, may be one of the root causes for the deeply held Christian antisemitism.

[cnorman18]

Carry on -- but with the understanding that this issue is thoroughly settled as far as the Jewish people are concerned, and has been for two thousand years. It's hard to see how it would matter to others.

It is an important issue to many Christians and you ought to know that. For many, the central apologetic for Christianity is that he is the promised Messiah, the Son of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That the Jews deny this and have consistently denied this for about two thousand years, may be one of the root causes for the deeply held Christian antisemitism.

Of course. But whose problem is that? If Christians choose to make the validity of their own beliefs somehow dependent on the beliefs of Jews, how is that OUR responsibility? Seems to me it's for Christians to rethink these ideas, not us. We're doing just fine without any reference to Jesus or to Christianity in our religion at all. A corollary of that fact is that we do not denigrate, attack or condemn the Christian faith in any way; we merely maintain that it is not OUR faith. That some Christians find it impossible to return that tolerance and respect is, again, not our responsibility nor our fault. This remains a Christian problem, and not a Jewish one.

What is the alternative? Shall we deny and abandon the most basic tenets of our own religion in order to please Christians?

[faroukfarouk]

Greetings to all
I wish to thank all those that replyed to my postings.
Interestings times ahead.
Nickman wrote..
So far its states that the Messiah will come out of Bethlehem but not necessarily born in Bethlehem. In any event this person will be from Bethlehem. So, according to the gospels Jesus fit this prediction. One must realize that the gospels were written after the prophecies and we cannot verify their authenticity. We cannot verify either way if they were fraudulent or not. The gospels seem to wiggle around in an attempt to make Jesus born there. Jesus was not from Bethlehem. He was born there. Micah alludes to someone who is from there and not necessarily by birth. Jesus was not from there. He was a last minute birth and then his family took him elsewhere.

Nickman I agree with you 100% on the authenticity of the gospels.So as long as its not penned by the prophet himself then there is doubt so far as the actual words spoken and hence the entire OT and NT is in question.Non the less with the books that is at our disposal we can still determine if Jesus was the Messiah and if these books are of no use then God in his infinite mercy has given man intelligence and we need to use it to derive at an reasonable answer.Note i am using OT as my first resort.

Nickman wrote
What we have is christians who take the least important parts of the messiah such as birth, tribe and the like yet disregard the "meat and taters" portions that tell of what the Messiah was supposed to do. Then they wonder why Jews don't believe in Jesus. Although Jesus does meet the smallest requirements such as birth and lineage he does not meet the requirements that actually matter. That would be the actions the messiah is supposed to perform. Jesus doesn't fulfill any of these important aspects of being the messiah. To add, the Messiah wasn't supposed to KNOW he was the messiah and proclaim himself as such. He was just a man, political leader that would bring Israel back into their promised land and would rule over all nations no longer to be taken captive again. Jesus doesn't do any of this. The messiah was not supposed to be resurrected or any of the things that the gospels authors wrote about Jesus.

Nickman note you dont have to a Christian to belive that Jesus was the Messiah.There is no rule for accepting Jesus as the Messiah.You dont have to belive he was God or he was resurrected or the rest of Christian beliefs in order to accept him as the messiah.

Finally
Nickman I see out of the 5 verses that I posted you rejected all 5 or maybe 4.
Now lets make the debate simple by answering just one question.
Is there just one verse in the OT,in your honest opinion, that Jesus fulfilled in order to call him the Messiah?
Note the question is open to all Jews and only Jews so no cheating please.

May peace and blessings be upon Jesus,his mother Mary and all mentioned Prophets.
May you all have a peaceful day.