i would agree that based on some scripture it is unreasonable. man and god are wholely different things. god cannot be a man, and vice versa, and to worship a man (a created entity) as a god is idolatry.
I see God doing as He pleases, and if becoming the propitiation of sin fancies, I think He is well within reason to do so. Muslims make a similar claim as you do, that God wouldn't dirty Himself by becoming a man. But did they ever think that speaks disparagingly of His creation?
elohim, when applied to yahueh, is never plural. it simply looks plural, and it's plural case is spelled the same way. grammatically, it is always singular when applied to god, yahueh. all of the verbs used with it are singular.
I would say that Elohim is a cryptic word to use because it can be used both ways. I would even dare say that the more proper enunciation for Elohim in plurality would be, Eloah. Of course, this etymology is not seen in the texts of any of the books of the Bible, except while being used in poetic fashion. If I'm not mistaken, the rendering of Allahu to Allah is a similar translation as Eloah is to Elohim in Hebrew.
If this is the case, then I certainly would concede that Elohim is used singularly and only causes a misunderstanding when it is transliterated into English on the basis of face value, rather than how Hebrews would have used it.
no, i am opperating under the assumption that god is not a fool.
What about the Trinity would make God foolish?
Is incapable of providing for Himself the acceptable sacrifice by becoming both man and God and Spirit simultaneously?
Isn't that the ultimate way of proving His love for humanity? Think about it. Its genius, not foolishness.
god is said to have (perhaps taking?) a human form throughout the old testament. when he wrestles with jacob in the desert, he is in human form. when he shows moses his body, he is in human form. when he walks through the garden with adam and eve, he is in human form. in many instances, he has forms that are considerably less solid, as a pillar of cloud and fire, or a burning bush. and there is a passage where god provides his own sacrifice.
So, which is it? Would God never become as a man or would He? And how can you explain prophecies concerning the Mashiac in terms of Him being equal to God by doing things that only God can do?
no, there are not. read them more carefully, and separately this time.
You're going to have to describe your objections in detail because I don't know what it is you are trying to point out. I've read these over numerous times.
i am, and in the context of scripture, it is utterly abhorent to call any descendant of adam "god." it is what time and time again foreign kings are mocked for by the prophets.
Is it? Then what mortal can overcome the curse of Jehoiachin and still be apart of the line of David without inhereting the curse?
any man who might claim to be the Messiah has heavy burden to overcome. In all actuality, it is physically impossible to overcome. We know that Mashiac will come from the line of David.
Nevertheless, as we will see, the line was essentially cursed from the time of the prophet Jeremiah. Just as Israel was going into exile, God made two declarations that first appeared contradictory about the last Davidic king over Judah, Jehoiachin (or other translations, ”Coniah’). The first declaration was that of his physical descendants, no one would ever sit upon the throne of David, in spite of the fact that they would continue to inherit the rights to the throne. How can this be?
“Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants? Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land they do not know? O’ land, land, land, hear the Word of the Lord! This is what the Lord says: ”Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.” -Jeremiah 22:28-30
This really presents a problem for everyone in Davidic lineage to inherit the throne, doesn’t it? How can the Messiah overcome this?
Well, the second declaration makes it clear, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see. Also a promised ”Branch’ would raise up the throne and sit upon it.
“In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from the line of David; He will do what is just and right in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the Name by which he will be called: ”The Lord Our Righteousness.’ For this is what the lord says, ”David will never fail to have a man sit on the throne of the house of David." -Jeremiah 33:14-17
Thus, we see that the Messiah is not a son of Adam, but rather, a Son of God. Because Jesus was conceived by the Spirit, rather than, by the will of a husband through natural procreation, He did not inherit the curse of Jehoiachin.
However, because Joseph was His legal guardian, and Joseph and Mary were both from the line of David means that ONLY Jesus could still sit on the throne and avoid the curse. Jesus elucidates this point to the Pharisees by showing that David himself has considered the Mashaic to be God in the flesh.
“While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, ”What do you think about the Christ (Messiah)? Who’s Son is He?’ They said to Him, ”The son of David.’ He said to them, ”How then does David in the Spirit call Him ”Lord,’ saying: ”The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies a footstool?’ If David then calls Him ”Lord,’ how is He his son?’ And no on one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to question Him anymore.” -Matthew 22:41-46
Jesus is exactly right, (not that this should come as a surprise). How can David say,
“Then the LORD said my Lord,” if he was not talking about God? Who is the Lord? The Lord is God, right? David himself is pointing out the deification of the Christ, and very plainly, that the Lord, the Messiah, is God the Son and that the LORD God, is God the Father.
To me these are very clear teachings, and yet, the vast preponderance perhaps does not want to believe this truth because of its implications. But, Jesus was very clear. He essentially stated to the religious elite,
if you know God, as you claim to do, then you would know who I AM; as it is very evident by your lack of fruitfulness, that you do not know who I AM.
quote:
As David said, "there are none that are good, no, not even one."
and you talk to me about context? david is not commenting on the state of all human kind, but the the transgressions of his country. the implication of the rest of that very verse, "they have all gone aside" is that people have lost their way, not that they never had it, or could not have it.
Even supposing that David was speaking of ONLY his countrymen, this still presents a problem because Scripture was clear on what line, what nationality, and what faith the Mashiach must come from. The Mashiac is Jewish, through and through. So, if no Jew is good,
no, not even ONE, then who will the Messiah be?
clearly, according to the old testament, there are a number of people who are called "perfect" by god. including david. even after he sins in the text. surprise, god is forgiving.
Where does it say that David is perfect? David knows he was far from perfect.
according to you, we cannot fully understand the trinity. apparently, we have a better chance of understanding god without this concept.
Why? No man can fully understand God without Himself being God. That seems fairly obvious to me.
ben means "son." banah means "build" or "builder." in plural, they are spelled the same in hebrew (but the vowels are different). singular case is different, but many cases are similar. i can understand why this would be confusing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Bar" means son, "bat" means daughter-- as in, Simon bar Jonah, (Simon the son of Jonah). My concordance says that ben literally means, builder, while it is making allusions to sons. Meaning, we are building off of Adam.
not entirely true. if your mother was jewish, and your father a gentile, you are a jew. if your father is jewish and your mother a gentile, you're a goy.
If a Jewish man marries a Gentile woman, their children are not Jewish. And even if a Jewish woman marries a Gentile man, that means that they can not possibly be raised as complete Jews, or Goy's, as you alluded. The point being, Jews are supposed to marry other Jews according to the faith.
quote:
This is precisely why intermarriage was forbidden in Biblical times.
i think you'll find another reason much prominent in the old testament, if you actually look for where it's spelled out. i'll give you hint, i discussed it above, and it starts with an "i"
and ends with a "dolatry."
Heh... Yeah, I agree.
cohen = levi, for all intents and purposes. while technically, kohanim are a subset of the tribe of levi, they are close to be synonymous today. and actually, kohanim can be identified by their genes. it's called the kohanim modal haplotype, an irregularity in a single chromosome found only in sons of "y-chromosomal aaron," and uniquely in middle eastern people -- a large percentage of which happen to be named "cohen."
Holy crap! I didn't know that. That answers so many more questions I have.
oh, and one south african tribe that identifies itself as jewish.
Specific Ethopians, right? I can't remember their tribal name off hand.
quote:
Many Davidic kings on the throne of Israel had Gentile mothers. Did this make them Gentiles from the Tribe of Judah and the family line of David?
can you document this?
Ruth was a Moabite who was married to Boaz, who begat Obed, who begat Jesse, who begat David, etc, etc.
that is highly, highly debatable. it's definitally not the case in micah, but i do not feel like getting into messianic prophecy here. there are other threads for that.
What is debatable about the timeline? As well, this isn't about messianic prophecy, this about how messianic prophecies help corroborate the Trinitarian belief.
quote:
Aside from this glaring point, since when is a man, any man, referred to as ”Mighty God’ and ”Everlasting Father?’
here's some good ones to search for:
* — - elijah, "god yahu[eh]"
* - jehu, "yahu[eh]"
* ‘ - joab, "yahu[eh] father"
* — - joel, "yahu[eh] god"
* - john, "merciful god"
* — - michael, "like god"
* — - nehemiah, "comforting god"
* - zedekiah, "righteous god"
* — - samuel, "name of god"
want some more? there are tons of names in the hebrew bible (AND the christian bible) that end or start with "el" or "yah." some of them more debatable than others. but these are ones that have meanings close to what you're looking. i skipped a bunch of "eli-" names, too, because those mean "my god" and aren't as obvious.
Yes, I know all of these names and their meanings. But I would contend that the prophecies are used descriptively, meaning, this is what the Mashiac will perform, rather than simply His name.
"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high... Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is silent before it’s shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked, but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When you make His soul as an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge, My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I shall divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and HE BORE THE SIN OF MANY, and made intercession for the transgressors.” -Isaiah 52:12 and 53:13
So, even if use the argument that those are just names, you can see in this passage that it is speaking very clearly about everything that Jesus did. What mere man can do only what God can do, which is taking away sin? No one can do this but God, right? So, Mashiac must either be God, or have so special a relationship with God that He can delineate His authority.
And again,
“When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish His kingdom forever. I will be His FATHER and He will be My SON. When He does wrong, I will punish Him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But My love will never be taken away from Him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before Me; your throne will be established forever.” -2nd Samuel 7:12-13
Here we see that the Messiah has a father/son bond that cannot be broken. You may have noticed that it says,
when He does wrong, I will punish Him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. Jesus was completely sinless, which is a prerequisite. He never did wrong, but for our sake, He became sin. Sin must be atoned for by blood. Halacha makes this very clear.
God cannot overlook sin for the sake of justice. However, because of His mercy, God Himself became the propitiation of sin as the only acceptable sacrifice. Because Jesus did this, it is as if Father momentarily looked away from the Son. The weight of humanities sin was placed upon Jesus, which is why He cried out,
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani!
Therefore, we know from the gospels that Jesus was inflicted with some of the most horrific beatings ever endured by anyone. Romans were champions at torture. They employed some of the most painful tactics ever devised by man’s reprehensible mind.
The carnage against Him was so awful that Isaiah prophesied, that,
“His body would be marred more than any other man.” His beating was so profound that He literally was a lump of flesh and blood. To reiterate, while on the cross He would
prophetically cry out, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachtani?”
This is where we start to see parallels. When Abraham was asked to sacrifice his only son, God did not allow him to complete the task, because He had no intention of having Abraham complete this. God stopped Abraham and told him that He would provide for Himself an acceptable sacrifice. This story was a prophetic foreshadow of what God was going to do for mankind out of His abundant love in the distant future. Jesus was the acceptable sacrifice, provided by God, Himself.
Therefore, once again, the Messiah is God, and God the Messiah. This is the very gift of salvation spoken throughout the New Testament that God had in mind from the beginning. Despite all of this amazing prophecy, most Rabbinical scholars seem confused about this prophecy.
They know this is a messianic prophecy, but seem unable to understand the breadth of what God has had in mind for His chosen one’s since the beginning. Probably the main reason why most do not believe Jesus was the Messiah is that He did not establish peace on earth. What they fail to realize is that His return is imminent, and though it tarries, God is not slack on His promises.
Jesus is Mashiac ben Yosef, and so died on that account that it might be counted as righteousness on our behalf, if we accept this gift. He poured out His life unto death to us all, and yet, not a single one of us is deserving of it. And when the last individual comes to Christ, He will return for His bride. And we will see the glory of His kingdom and the fulfillment of His promise when Jesus comes as Mashiac ben David. The belief that Jesus died, resurrected, and will come again for His bride, is not merely a Christian extrapolation.
“And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people; for the Gentiles shall seek Him, and His resting place shall be glorious. It shall come to pass in that Day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left.” -Isaiah 11:10-11
It seems to be that there is no greater a candidate for Messiahship than that of Jesus.
this actually somewhat ironic, because there isn't a whole lot said in the bible about the messiah, because the tradition didn't even start until after the exile.
Even if you maintain that view, which, even from a Rabbinical point of view would be absurd, just the one's I provided juxtaposed by the New Testament is enough to make an excellent claim for Yeshua.
Its all in the details. For instance, alot of people ask why Jesus' life was not recorded before the age of thirty. Well, He lived among us like a regular man would and had no form of comliness about Him. He was following the Law. He did not start His ministry until thirty, because that's what the law prescribes.
And Jesus was a Priest in the order of Melchizadek. You cannot perform priestly duties before thirty, according to Halacha. It all makes so much sense once you get passed the meat and the potato's, so to speak-- once you get passed the Sunday school teachings and into the real stuff, it comes alive and makes it unassailable.
if being the messiah is partially defined by being a son of david, how can god (who is not the son of david) or the son of god (who is not the son of david) be the messiah?
The son of David ----> the son of Adam----> the son of God/the son of man.
it might be the most apologetic way to read certain contradictory elements, but "it's both and we're too stupid to understand" is NOT a good answer.
Nobody is saying that anyone is too stupid to understand the Trinity. Humanly speaking, I would be the first to point out how the logic fails. But the belief is supported by Scripture.
the parts about strict, strict monotheism cannot possibly combine with worship of more than one entity. and pretending that 3=1 is not the solution to this.
God is One. We all know this. We're not saying there is three, we are saying there is 3 charachteristics, three manifestations, equaling One God. Think of it in another term: Ice, liquid, and vapor are three distinct characteristics of water-- but its all water and nothing is going to change that whether its in different forms. Its all H
2. Does that makes sense?
Its the same as Kabbalah in that, Kabbalah says, One God-- many characteristics.
john is vastly different than the other gospels. and the stuff jesus walks around saying has very gnostic tendencies. it's not a gnostic gospel itself, but i have a suspicion it was written to attract gnostic tastes.
If the gospel of John was the inspiration for some or all of the gnostic texts, then, whatever, I guess.
you have back it up by combining texts willy-nilly, with little to no regard for the separate traditions they represent. my conjecture that the concept of the trinity comes from combining of texts is actually demonstrated in full by your argument. break the texts into groups, and no one set says all of what you want it to say.
I am comparing text by text. I'm not using the gospel of John to corroborate the gospel of John. I'm using Zechariah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc, etc, to corroborate the claims.
yes, it's my personal opinion that god absolutely rules out worshipping anything made in his image, any human being, or anything else besides him and him alone?
If you worship Satan, you worship Satan, and not God. If you worship Moses, then you are worshipping Moses, not God. If you worship Jesus, you worship God. That's the point.
it is my opinion that a mortal being, a "son of man" is the exact opposite of god within the contexts of the hebrew bible?
God, coming in the form of man,
whose goings forth are from old would highly suggest that's what God had in mind from the beginning. Cripes, even line up the names in Genesis 5 and its spelled out for us.
“Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) His death shall bring the despairing rest.”
i have used scripture, i just haven't especially thrown it at you in bible-thumping manner.
That's a specious plea. Why is it that when someone backs up their points of view, by using Scripture, that it becomes Bible-thumping? That's absurd.
it's simply not what you think it is. at some point, you just have to accept that certain things are contradictory, and that "god" and "not god" contradict. otherwise, you are simply saying that you do not believe in the rules of logic, and that god is irrational.
I gave you the Scriptures. Does "speaking" creation into existence seem like a good explanation-- something that we can fully grasp? No, but that doesn't negate its possibility. Look, if you don't want to believe in the Trinity, or Jesus, or Judaism, or anything else, that's entirely up to you. But if we're having a discussion on the subject, its worth while to examine the very Scriptures for how belief in the Trinity came about.
well, here's an example. let's look at a passage from isaiah that supports my point.
quote:Isaiah 45:4-8:
For the sake of Jacob My servant,
and Israel Mine elect,
I have called thee by thy name,
I have surnamed thee,
though thou hast not known Me.
I am the LORD, and there is none else,
beside Me there is no God;
I have girded thee, though thou hast not known Me;
That they may know from the rising of the sun,
and from the west,
that there is none beside Me;
I am the LORD; and there is none else;
I form the light, and create darkness;
I make peace, and create evil;
I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.
Drop down, ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness;
let the earth open, that they may bring forth salvation,
and let her cause righteousness to spring up together;
I the LORD have created it.
do i have to point out the structure?
it goes: A-A-B-B-C. D-D-C. E-E-D-D. F-F-G. H-H-I-I-G. it's like rhyme structure in english, except instead of rhymin, it works by reptition of concept, generally with synonyms. sometimes with antonyms. this one is a bit more complex, as it has recurring elements that repeat at the end of certain groups -- but generally, things are found in pairs. this is a standard hebrew poetic device. look for it anywhere in the bible, and you will find it.
I have no idea what you are referring to. Call me dense, if you will, but can you expound on this? What does a,b,c,d,e,f,h,i, and g represent? Lines of order?
"With derision the atheist points out that there can be no God because this world is so unfair. Without hesitation, I concur with him. Indeed, we live in an unfair world because of all sorts of social ills and perils. I must not contend with such a sentiment because it is factual-- we don't live in a fair world. Grace is unambiguous proof that we live in an unfair world. I received salvation when I deserved condemnation. Yes, indeed this world is unfair." -Andrew Jaramillo-
™ Version 4.2