Matthew is flat-out annoying in the degree to which he lifts Tanakh verses out of context to “prove” their fulfillment in some event in Jesus’s life, as told by him. The Nativity narrative is notably loaded with this, including the abovementioned Flight into Egypt and the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents, for which he quotes Jeremiah 31:15 – which has to do with Rachel, the ancestress of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, who was buried at Ramah, figuratively weeping because the tribes descended from her “are no more.”
The whole thing has to do with whether or not Jesus fulfilled the expectations of those awaiting a Messiah – and for many Jews He did not, while others, blessed with 20:20 hindsight, saw in His words and deeds the fulfillment of OT prophecy in a different way than anyone had read it.
I think that most eschatology probably needs to be seen in just that way.
Diogenes pretty much reiterated what I was about to in the post following yours, re Psalms and Isaiah. I believe the 70 weeks timeline has pretty much been ripped to shreds (even with a single week of years held in reserve until the Tribulation starts) but I don’t know where to reference offhand. If anyone knows of such a citation, I’ll be very grateful.
And regarding the question of whether one can “postpone” certain prophecies to a Second Coming, the response of Judaism is as follows:
Amos 3:7 clearly states that God does nothing without telling his prophets first. Thus, if God planned the Messiah to live at a certain period of time and then return to earth centuries later he would have said so.
This argument is also used to point out the impossibility of the messiah being Divine or being risen from the dead. With regard to the latter, one can only wonder which “scriptures” the women and apostles had explained to them, according to the “NT”.
Depending on one’s perspective and objective, there are allusions to the Messiah embedded in the OT, yes. No Christian worth their “salt” would claim that all the prophecies/allusions have been fulfilled for the hoped for second coming has yet to materialize.
The allusions to Christ/Messiah found in Genesis, Isaiah, Micah, etc can be interpreted in a number of ways. Surely you know this.
Just the other day infact, I heard an allusion that was new to me. The date of Noah’s exit from the ark is apparently believed by some to be an allusion to the resurrection of Christ.
Acts 18:24-28 records how; " And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures,… he mightily convinced the Jews,
and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ."
Just one example.
Psalms 110:1 <<A Psalm of David.>> The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
David clearly understood that his Lord was to subserviant to The Lord for a time, i.e. until the enemies of Christ would be put down.
One would have to be a Jew, well versed in the O.T. like Apollos to put on the convincing case for Jesus being the Christ, using only the O.T.
Some or all of the allusions (or illusion of allusion) to Christ in the OT are true or they’re not.
Some or all of the NT material regarding Christ (depending on who you personally think he was, is or who he wasn’t or ever was) is true or it’s not.
Since none of us were there, we have no accurate way of getting into the spiritual/political heads of the authors. We are left to take a random shot in the historical dark, piecing together the material whe have to produce outcomes that are likely consistent with our own spiritual/political heads. There are no surprises in that, we find what we’re looking for.
Why bother comparing OT and NT scripture? Why study the fragments of people like Porphyry, who also believed in demons so what sets him apart and makes him credible? Why lend more weight to his fragments than the extant fragments of Biblical scripts? Does another 100 years after the fact make one’s aim more accurate?
Unless we unearth an ancient postcard that says :
“Hi! This is me reporting from the empty tomb of Jesus/Joshua/Yeshua, the Nazrene, born of a virgin in Bethlehem. Since my conversion on the road to Damascus I’ve been busy starting churches for the Gentiles and my brothers in Christ have been tromping all over the Holy Land preaching the risen Christ. I apologize that it took us so long to write. We were understandbly busy and arguing over which calendar to use. Gotta run, my heads about to roll.”
I salute you!
Paul
We’re still left to make the connections we choose to make. And even if that were to happen, there are those who would still say “Paul, who?”. In other words, why bother discussing these issues when the outcomes are already presupposed?
Are you saying everyone is either a believer of one kind or another, or an unbeliever.
What about the unbeliever who is a sincere seeker of truth wherever it may lead?
You’re using Christian propaganda to support Christian doctrine. The Scriptures actually do not “shew” that “Jesus was Christ,” regardless of what Acts says.
Just one example.
This Psalm is about David not the Messiah (no, David didn’t write it).
It’s more about snookering an audience which does not understand what these scriptures mean in proper context.
There is no great trick to fabricating elaborate arguments or theses from decontextualized verses. David Koresh used the same technique to prove to convince people he was “Christ.”
Post all the scripture you want. I’ll explain the proper context and meaning in every single instance. Set up the pins and I’ll knock them down.
There is a story from the lore of the Kabbalah that a Jewish Kabbalist, Solomon Meir Ben Moses, converted to Christianity in 1665. He then used Kabbalistic methods to convert another Jew who had been bitterly opposed to Christianity.
The opening word of the Book of Genesis in Hebrew is BeRe’ShIT—obviously, as the very first word in the Scriptures, this carries an especially heavy meaning. Solomon Meir Ben Moses took these six Hebrew letters Beth, Resh, Aleph, Shin, Yod, Tav, and found that they form the initials of the sentence Ben Ruah Elohim Av Sheloshetem Yehad Temim — ‘The Son, the Spirit, the Father, their Trinity, perfect unity’. He also came up with more sentences along these lines, all of which persuaded him of the truth of Christianity.
Although I’d been a student of Kabbalah, this didn’t stop me from losing my Christianity. Personally, I’m not persuaded by Solomon Meir Ben Moses’s proofs, but a couple of Jews did find them persuasive.
But look, the first four letters in Genesis form the initials for the Hebrew words Son, Spirit, Father, Trinity. Can all this be just a concidence? I think not, sahib!
