John and Funk,
Hope you don't mind me bringing this discussion/debate over to this thread. This is from John's last (I think) comment on the geneaology discussion.
quote:
Originally posted by John:
Well, there you have it. The Bible contains the criterion for the messiah. The bible also has the genealogy of Christ--two in fact. Neither of them are valid messianic lines. Ergo, as per the Bible itself, Christ ain't the messiah. Oops!
quote:
Originally posted by Chara:
John, you have raised a valid question for which a suitable answer has not been made available to you. The absence of the answer does not prove your point.
quote:
Originally posted by John:
No, it doesn't. However, in the absense of that answer my point stands. That is as proven as anything gets in the real world.
But on to some specifics. This is the sort of thing which seems to me to be too blatantly obvious for there to not be a ready made response. In fact, it seems like there should be mountains of refutations, correct or not. Yet, I get no response. Nothing. You pick on, for example, the figure for pi in the OT and you get a firestorm. This attack upon the messiah gets nothing? Very strange indeed.
John, you mentioned that the Bible contains the criterion for the Messiah and I just wanted to remind you of some of those criteria (sp?) I found this
list of Important Messianic Passages. I am sure that this is not something that is new to you. I honestly do not know if it is exhaustive or not, but I did find it interesting that they have all been satisfied.
Anyway, the point of posting this link was to point out that there are many criteria/criterion ummmmm qualifications for the Messiah that have been satisfied. Given the math of probabilities is it
possible that the geneaology in question is not counter evidence (is that a correct phrase?), but something we just don't understand yet. Please note the emphasis on "possible".