My comments were personal, but I certainly agree with your point. As long as you leave the principle of “it means what it says” behind, you the convolutions, or subtleties if you prefer, get greater and greater. In this case we were taught that the Shma “The Lord is your God, the Lord is One,” is the most important part - but if you let someone convince you that one is three, everything is up for grabs. No different really than the “what does a day mean really” debate.
I’m gonna hijack this for a bit-
Which group of Jews is most vulnerable to C’tian missionary activity? Religious or secular?
That asked, which is a greater threat to the Jewish community? C’tian missionary work or secularism?
Are there other spiritual paths than C’nity or Islam which are regarded with such outrage when searching Jews follow them?
Is it worse for a Jew to accept JC as Messiah or Mohammed as a Prophet than for him/her to follow Buddha, Krishna, New Age or Neo-Paganism (I gotta admit the Net presence of Jews who explore “Canaanite spirituality” really bugs me- especially when that “CS” is so sanitized from what it originally entailed.
Except for Daniel 9 G
He got himelf killed 483 years after the Nehemiah 1 decree to rebuild Jerusalem & before the sacrifices were abolished, the Temple abominated & the city destroyed.
Normally I would explain the Jewish interpretation and the contemporary historical analysis of Daniel but I know that you’re educated enough to already be familiar with them.
Suffice it to say that the Christian inferences above require an interpretive definition of the time table. Seeing Jesus in this passage is highly subjective. I won’t try to argue the point because the way that you’re reading it is partially based on faith. I just want to make the point that you’re injecting a degree of religious interpretation into the text, and that (as you know) the Jewish interpretation is quite different
Actually, the secular scholarly analysis even disagrees with some of the Orthodox Jewish assumptions.
Please tell me what that analysis makes of Daniel, and the 9th chapter in particular.
Daniel was written during the Maccabean rebellion of the 2nd century BCE against Antiochos. It was set during the Babylonian exile and used the legendary figure of Daniel as an allegorical device to talk about the Selucid occupation, the King, Antiochos, who persecuted them and the rebellion to drive out the Greeks and liberate Israel. Like the book of Revelation, Daniel uses coded symbols to discuss a contemporary (to the author) situation.
There are some conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews who still believe that Daniel was really written during the Babylonian exile but the lingusistic style, along with a number of other anachronistic elements, make such an early date impossible.
Chapter 9, which deals with “70 weeks,” the “abomination” in the temple and the coming of the Messiah refer to a period of time during which Antiochus installed a statue of Zeus in the Temple. Daniel prophies that the Messiah will come and drive out Antiochus and bring world peace. None of Daniel’s actual attempts at predictive prophesy came true (The revolt was successful, but not in the way Daniel predicted and the Messiah (obviously) did not come).
Daniel’s dreams and time table which all referred to events prior to or contempory with its date of authorship are now reinterpreted by Christians. The 70 weeks becomes 70 weeks of years, and Daniel’s statue and succession of kings is redefined, but most objective historical scholarship now regards Daniel as a piece of work solely concerned with events of the 2nd century BCE.
A thorough analysis of Daniel can be found in James Finn Garner’s Apocalypse Wow! . The change in writing style and other evidence point to the prophetic chapters being a later addition. It was written in order to convince the Jews that they could defeat Antiochus.
Acts 18:24 - 28 is the account of Apollos and his teaching Jews from the OT scriptures.
Acts 9:3 - 22 recounts the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and later in Acts 22 - 16 Paul (formerly called Saul) adds some additonal information.
In Acts 7 Stephen recounts the history of Isreal and in verses 48 - 53 chastises the Jewish leaders severely for resisting the holy spirit.
You can dismiss the N.T. as fable, fabrication, or what ever. In the final analysis you can either give it serious consideration or argue it doesn’t apply to you.
Believe it or not, it is a choice you have to make.
I guess I don’t really understand your point. Regardless of what the NT claims, the Hebrew Bible says nothing about Jesus. If you think otherwise, then please cite the relevant passage from the Tanakh. Your cites from Acts are not useful to the argument. They don’t specify any passages from the OT or outine your cited characters’ cases. I maintain that finding Jesus in Hebrew scripture requires creative interpretation and wishful thinking.
Not.
Apollos was the Jew who made the case from the O.T. scriptures. Did not those scriptures predict the coming of the Messiah? Do they not have a lot to say about the Messiah? Apollos linked the two! Are you sure you will be able to recognize the Messiah when he returns?
Apollos made WHAT case from the OT? Acts doesn’t say.
Sure, the Hebew Bible talks about the Messiah. The problem is that Jesus doesn’t meet the criteria laid out in the OT.
As to whether I will recognize the Messiah- I’m an agnostic. I don’t believe in Messiahs. I do know that the Jesus of the NT fulifilled none of the exectations of the Annointed One in the Tanakh, though.
Secular Jews are certainly the most vulnerable to missionizing, as observant Jews have generally had a good enough Jewish education to understand the issues discussed above (unfulfilled requirements for the Messiah, mistranslations, etc.)
IMHO, however, secularism is the much greater threat, in that missionaries convert a very tiny percentage of Jews, while intermarriage and general lack of knowledge mean that most American Jews (the Jews I know best ;j) won’t have Jewish great-grandkids.
Technically, monotheistic faiths (definitely Islam, possibly Christianity) are less bad that polytheistic ones in terms of ‘outrage when searching Jews follow them,’ but at that point, it’s a matter of degree; I’d rather get punched 30 times than 35, but that doesn’t make 30 punches to the gut something I’d be happy about.
To play advocate for Judaism ;j …
I’ll throw the question right back at you.
Are you sure YOU will be able to recognize the Messiah?
True Blue Jack