The Whole Jesus Thing

you're actually both wrong, and i can say this with a reasonable degree of certainty.when jesus says "The Law" he's saying it either in hebrew or aramaic. the hebrew word for law is "Torah." maybe you've heard this term before. he tends to refer to "The Law" in conjunction with "The Prophets." the hebrew word for prophet is "navi" but in plural, "Nevi'im," it's the section of the tanakh that comes after the torah, and includes books like joshua, judged, kings, and isaiah.it's pretty clear that he's refering to these two collections of books, and not just accidentally using their names. he's not refering to commandments, laws, oral law (talmud), or anything else. he means the books of moses.

funny the word has a biblical origin.

quote:

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Lev 16:8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.

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but the kjv and several other translations messed it up. the word comes from the words for "goat" and "go away." but it's a noun. it's the thing that makes the goats go away. more importantly, the word is a proper name: aza'zel.this is something that eats goats at the hebrew encampment unless one is sent off to it. maybe it's the chupacabra, but the people who wrote the book of enoch had another opinion.in enoch, aza'zel is one of the 200 angels who rebel against the lord, and have sex with earthly women (see genesis 6). in particular, aza'zel is the one who teaches mankind to make weapons to combat their giant nephilim offspring. for this crime, he is cast into the pit of hell.in other words, "the scapegoat" is a demon who eats goats. so no, it is not better.

yes, i posted about this earlier today in two other threads i think.

5 grand is a fairly significant sacrifice though.what does christianity demand? how does believing equate to a sacrifice in any way?(this question is double-edged, btw. if it's NOT a sacrifice, how is it a meaningful atonement for sins?)

well, yeah. more importantly, it's jesus saying that he's not trying to start a new religion. he's saying he's jewish, basically, and that his followers are jewish.

ben'adam. sons of men. it's one way of saying a member of the group man (like ben'yisrael = israelite).of course, it may also be referring to the prophets. ezekiel was called the son of man as well.

what you are refering to is two distinct groups.ben'adam: "son of man" or a member of mankind
ben'eloyhim: "son of god" or a member of the gods. (some believers read this as "angel")ben'eloyhim is a group mention a few times in the bible. it is the group that lusts after the daughters of men, and spawns the nephilim in genesis 6, causing god to have to wipe the slate clean. it's the group that gathers at the beginning of job, and included hasatan. it's very apparent that in hebrew "son of god" means a lesser diety, or foriegn god, not an actual son.god also refers to kings as begotten sons (see psalm 2). the language is that of adoption, but the word means the same thing as the one applied to christ. so it is possible for someone to a member of mankind (a son of man) and still be adopted as a son of god.ben'adam is another term used elsewhere. ezekial is called "son of man" more times than i can count. it appears from the phrase's use in that book that certainly by the time of christ, "son of man" had prophetic connotation. jesus may have been refering to himself not as a human being, but a prophet like ezekiel, isaiah, and jeremiah. this certainly fits the story.the point being... well, i guess there was not point. but there are more ways to read it than one.

i think it has more to do with a change in the religion.

when did you turn evangelical, jar?

maybe we need to impress on people more that we're debating one topic at a time, and that we shouldn't have to go over the basics every damned time. i dunno if that's what happened here, but it's what usually does.

away from an antiquated system of sacrifice, and a blood-thirsty god, and towards a more abstract ideal. just my thought, anyways.

what specifically forbids it? i know it's not generally accepted and doesn't fit the levitical standards, but i don't see how the isaac story goes against anything... then again i haven't read it in a while. am i forgetting something?

depends on your reading of ben'adam: son of man. it can mean a member of mankind (lowly mortal). it can mean prophet. but it also can imply messiah. not "THE" messiah, but a messiah. actually, david calls himself a begotten son of god in psalm 2. (no, the psalm is not talking about jesus. it says the king was installed on zion, and the decree of god annointing the king was that the king was the son of god, begotten the day of his consecration by god. the language is adoption, not actual fatherhood. )it seems to be a common way to refer to the king of the jews. this is possibly where jesus gets that title "king of the jews" from: people calling him the son of god.also, god apparently has OTHER sons, according to the bible. there's a group of people/entities/gods/angels/whatever called the sons of god. see genesis 6 or job 1. ben'eloyhim, sons of god, can be read literally sons of god, or to mean that they are members of the group called god(s), ie: other gods. but we don't like that reading.

i think this answers some questions i've been having. i'll have to think about it.it's also evident that the followers of jesus thought the kingdom of god would come shortly after the death of jesus. it's one of the possible explanations for the lack of early christian (30-100 ad) texts -- they didn't think they'd need them.

i've gathered something along these lines myself. it's obvious that the jews and greeks and romans misinterpretted what he was saying. i tend to prefer the jewish interpretation to the others.however, this appears to be a gnostic interpretation. maybe it's closer to home, but i think it's still just an interpretation.