Jesus; the Torah, Nevi'im, and Psalms (Part 2)

In reading ALL of Malachi, God is the one who comes to the temple and the messenger is to be Elijah.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

The messiah presented here is a human deliverer and ruler.
Unfortunately Jesus never became a human ruler over Israel.
No talk of persecution, death, or resurrection of the ruler.I know the debates on whether Bethleham Ephrathah is a person or a place, but again this one verse is a small portion of a very long prophecy which does not fit Jesus specifically.No one has shown justification for verses standing alone as prophecy.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Looks like you have plenty of room to discuss the Isaiah verses you wanted to get to.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

How would one show that verses are able to stand alone as prophecy?Show that one sentence prophecies came true for something or someone other than Jesus. Alone this sentence doesn't say anything specific. Someone born in Bethleham (Which I think Arach will argue that one) will rule Israel.Jesus was supposedly born in Bethleham, but he didn't rule Israel.

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Or two, in the Gentile churches they were preaching a new Israel, made up of those who are children of Israel by faith (Rom 9). And over that Israel, Jesus is spiritually already ruler.

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Only by redefining the nation of Israel and ruler are they able to fit the supposed prophecy.

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For the NT Christian, the proof is the pudding, not in the context.

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We are testing the pudding. If the pudding tastes a little off, then we check the recipe.

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Jesus said, "You will know a prophet by his fruit,"

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Which to me means the fruit of the prophet is within the lifetime of the prophet.No one has shown me that God intended the fruit of the prophets to show up centuries later instead of for the audience listening.IMO, the NT writers did their homework.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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They did their homework in the sense of putting verses in context when they used them as prophecy?

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No, they pulled out one-liners that fit the Jesus they wished to portray. They don't seem to have anything to do with the original context.As for the rest of your post, maybe I inhaled too many fumes while cleaning the tub today, but I'm confused. I have no idea what you are getting at in relation to my posts.Maybe you can give a summary of the Christian approach to prophecy. The link didn't work for me.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

In other words, you don't know the purpose of prophecy.From what I have discovered, prophecy isn't for the unbeliever; at least before Christianity anyway.A prophet is a person who makes God’s will clear, and spoke to the people concerning God's purposes/requirements, seeking to recall them to obedience when they strayed.I finally read that "Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew" and all I can see is a Christian claiming that the Jews don't undestand their own writings.What do Christians consider a prophet to be?

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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well, that's not why it's a problem, actually. the problem is that if we know the nt authors just misread thematic elements, and alluded to texts that don't agree with them -- how accurate is the nt?

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In his letters, I don't see that Paul really claimed that Jesus fulfilled any prophecy. He did however pull quotes from the OT and various writings to lend authority to what he was saying.This is no different than what we do today. Such as if I quote what the elf said in "The Santa Clause." (seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing) In context, that sentence has nothing to do with religion, but the sentence served my purpose and I gave credit where credit was due. They weren't my own words. That doesn't mean the movie or author supported my use of the statement.Now the author of Mark also does not seem to claim that Jesus fulfilled any OT prophecy. The one verse 15:28 is considered to be added later and is left out of the Bibles I've seen. This author also uses quotes in the same manner that Paul did. But did he really claim any fulfillment of prophecy?The author of Matthew is the one who seems to have gone overboard with the out of context fulfillments. I've seen suggestions that the book of Matthew was actually written as a satire. If the book was truly written as a satire, then the author knew exactly what he was doing and didn't intend to use the verses in context.IMO, these NT authors didn't misread anything.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Satire According to MatthewI think the author of Matthew knew exactly what he was writing.IMO the author of Luke tried to clean out the satire.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

So when you think about it, the Christian Tradition followed the example of the author of Matthew when it came to picking out prophecy fulfillment and establishing their Rules of Prophecy and they bend over backwards to defend them.They seem to have lost the true purpose of the ancient prophecies.In the Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew Justin Martyr tells Trypho that he (Trypho) has been persuaded by teachers who do not understand the Scriptures.IMO, the opposite is true. Christianity doesn't seem to understand its own scriptures, let alone the Hebrew ones.Paul said Even Paul's description of prophecy seems to present prophecy as something for the listening audience, not the extreme future.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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I think all preachers like to make predictions.

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I think many people do, although not publicly or dealing with religion.I know there is a good word for what I am thinking of besides prediction, but every so often I have a "short circuit" and can't get a grip on the word I want. So let me know if you can figure it out.By watching what is happening around them some people notice trends or the way a situation is heading.Example:When my daughter was in HS she twirled a flag in the marching band. The new band director, a former preacher, thought the kids should give their all to the band even if school work fell behind. He had so many practices that the kids didn't have time for school work (even the smart ones). He also had a bad habit of putting male chaperones on an all girl bus. The bad part was the chaperone always sat in the back of the bus.I wrote to the band admin group and basicly told them that this was a disaster waiting to happen. I told them if they didn't change this situation, the school would end up in the papers and not in a good way.They ignored me and the school principal ignored me. The band was winning and that was all that mattered. Needless to say I pulled my daughter out of marching band because it didn't help her school work.That second year the school ended up in the newspapers and not in a good way. They fired the director and there were many student and parental complaints concerning the conditions.Isn't that really what the Prophets were doing? They looked at the bigger picture and could see problems down the road. Unfortunately they were weak in the solution part. Their solution was always to turn back to God and all will be well.Isn't there a good name for those who try to foresee problems and not just wait to put out fires?

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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'futurist'?

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That's the one I was looking for. I've heard it used in the workplace.Unfortunately, even companies don't like to change for the sake of a possible future problem unless they absolutely have to or until the problem actually arises.Some things never change I guess.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Your posts are full of if's and maybe's.The point of this discussion is to sort out the if's and maybe's, otherwise you have nothing better than Pascal's wager.Remember the pudding tastes a little off to us and we are testing the recipe. We have to discern whether the correct ingredients were added to the recipe or not.The OT is the recipe and God does not show that the words of the prophets would pertain to future generations in a modified form.The author of Matthew is the only early author to claim that the birth place was written of by a prophet. Look at the whole story. King Herod supposedly called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law and asked them where the Christ was to be born. They answered that he would be born in Bethlehem in Judea for that is what the propeht had written....This is a conversation that neither the author nor Jesus could have overheard. Even the Magi don't appear to be privy to this discussion. This is a fabricated conversation.The author of Mark doesn't mention Bethlehem (neither does Paul) and makes it known that Nazareth is the hometown of Jesus.IF you still wish to take the conversation as truth, then the rest of the prophecy of Micah should apply to Jesus. Herod only asked where the Christ would be born and since the thought of this birth disturbed Herod and ALL of Jerusalem, then what did they expect the Christ to do? Signs are supposed to let people know the prophecy is about to take place.What prophecy told them what the Christ would be doing after he was born?Since they found the source of his birth in Micah, wouldn't they expect the Christ to fulfill the rest of the prophecy in Micah? Longest labor pains on the books I would say.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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In my opinion birth place of Jesus becomes irrelevant especially after Jesus failed to meet all allaged signs of prophecies.

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That's pretty much what I was saying.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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How that can be possible, as we read that according the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, those who returned from Babylonia were led by two men named Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel. Both of these men were from the royal house of David.

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Micah prophesied sometime between 750-686 BCE.
Ezra was written about 440 BCE and Nehemiah about 430BCE.Given that Micah spoke way before Ezra or Nehemiah, why couldn't Micah be speaking of a family line?Concerning this discussion, the disappearance of David's line presents a problem for the Christians, not Micah or his audience. By your own example the line existed when the exiles returned from Babylon.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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I'm just saying that there's nothing stopping God from dropping a sentence in there that would later be changed into Greek, and then rather amazingly applied to a rather amazing incident (assuming that incident happened).

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Apply that to Micah 2 which is what we are discussing. See Message 55How long are believers supposed to follow assumptions?

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Again, my one point being that taking one sentence out of context as a prophecy is not intrinsically bad, as has been suggested in this thread.

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How about taking over 200 sentences out of context?

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That is why I have twice said, "My one point is that a one-line prophecy, pulled out of context, centuries after the prophecy was given, can have a purpose and could be of God."

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If the event happened, if the authors wrote of a true event, if what they wrote is true, then quite frankly the little baby that died from an infection recently should not have died. The child's parents believed and prayed for a healing. They did not take the child to a doctor. They believed what the authors claimed about healing.The proof is in the pudding!

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France