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Replying to otseng in post #3282
Do you think Mormons would do any different? The thing is, they can graft the Book of Mormon onto the Christian Bible just like you can graft the Christian Bible onto the Tanakh.
They have to first argue the BoM is authoritative and reliable.
Why can't they just
say that the BoM is authoritative and reliable and dismiss any Bible-based argument against what they say as a "hyperliteral interpretation"?
We know from the text that Immanuel was to be born before the conquest of Syria and Israel by Assyria.
No, we don't know. As we already discussed, it's implied, so it's an interpretation.
Athetotheist wrote:You can use the words "girl" and "boy" to refer to young females and males, but there's no connotation of sexual state in those words. A girl or a boy can be a virgin or not. Neither of those words means "virgin". It's the same with alma and elem.
otseng wrote:Again, it's implied.
Why is what's "implied" supposed to be correct when you like it, but
incorrect when you
don't like it? That's a double standard.
Immanuel being born before the Assyrian conquest is clear from the context, because the Assyrian conquest is the historical event being described.
You propose two other kings but, since we don't know who they would be, it's more reasonable to accept the "near" fulfillment as the only fulfillment.
As you stated here, we don't know who they would be. So, it can be equally apply to any kings, whether near or far.
Wrong. It has to apply to two kings who are causing Ahaz to be afraid, because that's what the text says. And conveniently enough, Pekah and Rezin are
explicitly named as the two kings who are making Ahaz afraid.
How can it be more clear than that?
Whose wishful thinking? It's certainly not mine. I'm just presenting what Matthew and Luke says.
Now, if you think both Matthew and Luke were wishful thinking, then it could be a possibility. But it's more likely it's wishful thinking on the skeptic's part on dismissing any credibility of the authors.
The context of Isaiah pre-empts any such likelihood.
So, the Christian interpretation is justified since the Isa 7:14 account and the Matthew and Luke accounts are consistent. They align with each other and it is derived from a plain reading of scripture.
A plain reading of Isaiah 7----the whole chapter, not just verse 14----tells of a child to be born before the conquest of Assyria over Syria and Israel, and whose early life is used as a timeline for the fall of the kings Pekah and Rezin.
That's what a
plain reading of Isaiah chapter 7 tells.
Now, I assume, that
plain reading is suddenly supposed to be a "hyperliteral interpretation".
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
For a near fulfillment, yes. But in a far fulfillment, he was addressing the Davidic line. We see this in the context of the previous verse:
[Isa 7:13-14 KJV] 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; [Is it] a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
You must be running out of arguments. I pointed out some time back that this is clearly addressed only to Ahaz, because Ahaz is the only one wearying Isaiah's God. I also pointed out that it's Ahaz being referred to as the House of David in 7:2 because he was the one told about the upcoming attack by Syria and Israel.
So his heart and the heart of his people were shaken as the trees of the forest are shaken with the wind.
It's obvious that it isn't the entire Davidic line being shaken, because the entire Davidic line wasn't there to fear Pekah and Rezin.
We do know specifically that Immanuel was to be born before the fall of Syria and Israel to Assyria (Isaiah 7:14-16, 8:7-8).
Again, it's only implied. So it's hyperbolic to say we do know.
Again, you're rejecting what's implied----
by the context----when you don't like it.
The "land" is the alliance between Syria and Israel. It's clear that the "land" consists of two lands because it has two kings.
From the viewpoint of a Jew, it would be strange to consider a foreign nation to be identified as the same land as your own. This was also only a temporary alliance to fight against the Assyrians. It's not like they had any type of political agreement to unite as a single nation.
Again, the word "land" is being used to refer to Syria and Israel as a united force.
Since you're----ironically----reading the word "land"
literally in your attempt to remove Pekah and Rezin from the picture, what literal, single land had two kings? What "land" with two kings would Isaiah have been talking about if not the lands of Pekah and Rezin?
That is indeed the question. What single land would have two kings?
Israel. With this view, it is honoring the land for the Jews since it's only referring to Israel and not claiming any foreign power is also included.
What
two kings did Israel have?
Then who gives birth to the child who won't know right from wrong before Pekah and Rezin----the only two kings being discussed----fall?
It's not my burden to answer that. You are the one who claims it's a near fulfillment.
My claim comes directly from a plain reading of the text, so it
is your burden to answer.
If Immanuel's birth isn't foretold to precede the fall of Pekah and Rezin, why does Isaiah go on and on about those two kings in 7:8-9?
I already gave you my proposal on that.
You may have given your proposal, but you're not answering this question.
Not hearsay. Not "testimony". What was the sign? What could anyone see about Mary which identified her as a virginal mother?
There is no requirement to be so hyperliteral.
In other words, there was nothing anyone could see.
Even in the near fulfillment case of the unknown alma giving birth to an unknown Immanuel, what evidence can we see of her giving birth to him? Where's the empirical evidence?
Are you so desperate to erase the prophecy of the fall of Pekah and Rezin that you would have Isaiah uttering a
false prophecy? You would have to strike
everything chapter 7 says about Pekah and Rezin.
The sign is simply a virgin having a child. There's no requirement that if we don't have empirical evidence* for it, then even if a virgin had a child, it's disqualified as a sign.
Did you catch the statistic quoted by Rabbi Skobac in the opening of his virgin birth talk? 1 in 200 American women claim to have given birth as virgins. So if a virgin birth is itself a sign, then virgins must give birth all the time. That means that even if Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, his birth was nothing special.
*(Note that just two paragraphs above this you were demanding of me, "Where's the empirical evidence?")
You can't justify your "interpretation" unless you can explicitly identify which other two kings they would have been.
Well, the last king of Israel was Hoshea and the last king of Judah was Zedekiah.
And when did either of those kings cause Ahaz to fear?
When are Hoshea and Zedekiah even
named in Isaiah 7? They're not. Pekah and Rezin
are named in Isaiah 7----more than once----, so there is far more textual evidence that
they are the kings whose fall is preceded by the child Immanuel than that those kings are Hoshea or Zedekiah or anyone else.
And even if Hoshea and Zedekiah were the two kings in Isaiah 7:16, what did they have to do with the birth of Jesus?
Now, I'm not completely dismissing a near fulfillment. But interestingly it has less support than a far fulfillment.
Then who are the two kings whose fall is preceded by the birth of the child Immanuel, if not Pekah and Rezin? (Hoshea and Zedekiah have already been ruled out.)
The assumption that the alma is not a virgin is based on the fact that Isaiah says she will give birth to Immanuel before the fall of Pekah and Rezin.
Well, how do you know she was not actually a virgin if we don't know who she was?
Since Isaiah says that the early life of her child will herald the fall of Pekah and Rezin, we know
when she lived.
(And since at least 1 in 200 women can give birth as virgins, how do
you know she wasn't a virgin?)
If she was not a virgin and married, it could easily be a godly sign.
But it would not be anything special.
It would as a sign of the fall of Pekah and Rezin.
Now, the fall of Pekah and Rezin taking place before the birth of Jesus 700 years after they lived----
that was nothing special.
Then there's no assumption on the part of Mormons that the other sheep of John 10:16 were Nephites. It's what the BoM explicitly says.
Do you believe the BoM is authoritative?
The question is, Do
you believe it's authoritative? And if you don't, why not----when the BoM can be defended with the same arguments you use to defend the Christian Bible?
Was Jesus's violation of Deut. 4:2 correct, or was his statement that whoever broke the least commandment of the law would be "least in the kingdom of heaven" correct?
False dilemma. There is no need for a hyperliteral reading of not adding to the Torah and there is nothing in the Torah that Jesus countermanded.
There's no such thing as a "hyperliteral" reading. It's just a
literal reading or, as you would say, a "plain reading".
By acknowledging the
literal text, you're admitting that there
are things in the Torah which Jesus countermanded.
I'm just pointing out Jesus did not do anything differently than the other rabbis in expounding on the Torah.
When Jesus said that every jot and tittle of the law was to be kept and then violated the command not to add to the law by saying, "Do not swear at all", he was contradicting himself. Do the other rabbis do that?
In how many ways can "But I say to you, do not swear at all" be interpreted?
As you agreed to, there is no commandment that says "you must swear".
And as I pointed out, there is no commandment that says, Do not swear at all" and that there
is a commandment that says, "Do not add to the law". You can try to brush that aside, but it won't go away.
There's no need to take the exact number literally.
Exactly, it's written metaphorically.
You left out the part where I pointed out that following after a Jew
is to be taken literally, so pretending that I supported your argument will do no good.
But, what I do claim as a sign and what Jesus himself claimed as a sign was his resurrection. And of course with that we do have empirical evidence that anyone can see.
At most, we have a "sign" of someone who called the Jews to follow a god who
wasn't the Jehovah of the Tanakh, who
didn't say "Do not swear at all" or "for your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives".