chair said:I would not call it experimentation. maybe hallucination.
Think for a minute. If I ask God, then one of three things may happen:
1. No answer
2. God says Christianity is the way to go
3. God says that another religion is the way to go
Many people have asked, and they have come up with all three answers. So how is one to know form this "experiment" what is truth?
daddyugi said:Hello chair,
Sorry I didn't get back with you sooner, but Tuesdays are busy for me right now. Thank
you for reading and then posting to help me avoid repeating what you've gone through
before.
1) You're right. The Bible doesn't mention who this is, just a servant of God. I asked you
to read these verses not to say this is Messiah, but to say that God's servant bore the
sin of many and interceded for the transgressors (sinners). The main reason I had you
read this now was to point out that to God, the sin issue has to be resolved and that He
would provide His own servant as a resolutioin to that issue.
2) If you want to accept that this is Messiah, that the New Testament is true and that
Jesus is Messiah, God bless you and this would be a really short discussion. I don't
and won't assume that you would accept this.
I won't insult your intelligence or mine. If I'm not mistaken, you, like me, want more than
a man's word to accept something as truth. At this time, I wouldn't try to argue that this
is the Messiah, because the Bible doesn't say it is. It doesn't say this is Jesus either,
this says that this (Is. 52:13) is God's servant. For me to say "if it isn't Jesus, who is it?"
would be showing my ignorance of the Bible. The Bible doesn't name who this is and
neither will I. (I'm wanting to you to tell me who it is, that's why I accepted your
challenge.
I reread Isaiah 10 through Isaiah 12 in order to get context ( remember, everything in
context), and find that this is prophesy. A wonderful prophesy that we are still waiting for.
Yes I believe that this is a Messianic prophesy as does Jews for Judism.com. We read
in Is. 11:1 that a shoot will come form the stump of Jesse. Messiah will be a decendant
of Jesse. As we read further in verse 10 "In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a
banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious."
I'll come back to that point later. As to do I honestly believe that this refers to Jesus,
I'll answer that a little later in another post. I'm not going to draw any conclusions before
I've presented the case you asked for.
Next, I ask you to read Isaiah 9 verses 1 through 7. Is this a Messianic prophesy? We'll
discuss this a little further tomorrow. Thursdays are an easy day for me. I have 6 hours
to catch up on TOL and all the threads I've been posting to. We'll discuss verses 6 and 7
in a little more detail.
God bless you.
daddyugi said:Hello chair,
Sorry I didn't get back with you sooner, but Tuesdays are busy for me right now. Thank
you for reading and then posting to help me avoid repeating what you've gone through
before.
1) You're right. The Bible doesn't mention who this is, just a servant of God. I asked you
to read these verses not to say this is Messiah, but to say that God's servant bore the
sin of many and interceded for the transgressors (sinners). The main reason I had you
read this now was to point out that to God, the sin issue has to be resolved and that He
would provide His own servant as a resolutioin to that issue.
2) If you want to accept that this is Messiah, that the New Testament is true and that
Jesus is Messiah, God bless you and this would be a really short discussion. I don't
and won't assume that you would accept this.
I won't insult your intelligence or mine. If I'm not mistaken, you, like me, want more than
a man's word to accept something as truth. At this time, I wouldn't try to argue that this
is the Messiah, because the Bible doesn't say it is. It doesn't say this is Jesus either,
this says that this (Is. 52:13) is God's servant. For me to say "if it isn't Jesus, who is it?"
would be showing my ignorance of the Bible. The Bible doesn't name who this is and
neither will I. (I'm wanting to you to tell me who it is, that's why I accepted your
challenge.
I reread Isaiah 10 through Isaiah 12 in order to get context ( remember, everything in
context), and find that this is prophesy. A wonderful prophesy that we are still waiting for.
Yes I believe that this is a Messianic prophesy as does Jews for Judism.com. We read
in Is. 11:1 that a shoot will come form the stump of Jesse. Messiah will be a decendant
of Jesse. As we read further in verse 10 "In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a
banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious."
I'll come back to that point later. As to do I honestly believe that this refers to Jesus,
I'll answer that a little later in another post. I'm not going to draw any conclusions before
I've presented the case you asked for.
Next, I ask you to read Isaiah 9 verses 1 through 7. Is this a Messianic prophesy? We'll
discuss this a little further tomorrow. Thursdays are an easy day for me. I have 6 hours
to catch up on TOL and all the threads I've been posting to. We'll discuss verses 6 and 7
in a little more detail.
God bless you.
daddyugi said:Hello chair,
I'm glad you agree that it seems Messianic in nature, indeed, a lot of Isaiah seems to be
filled with Messianic messages. One of the reasons is, like I've said before, everything is
to be taken in context. In Isaiah chapter 6, we see Isaiah's vision of God and it terrified
him. If we really see God as He is in this text, it should terrify us as well. Isaiah see
God as the angels see Him, Holy, Holy, Holy. He falls on his face and exclaims that he
is ruined. In our language, he'd be saying "I am so screwed" because of his sin and the
sin of his nation and because he had seen the King (not Elvis), and the LORD of hosts.
We see an angel take an ember from the alter and lay it on Isaiah's lips and tells him that
his iniquities is taken away and his sin forgiven. Then God speaks. "Whom shall I send
and who will go for Us?" Isaiah's response is "Here am I. Send me", and that is what
God did. God sent Isaiah to be His mouthpiece and He didn't just stop with the end of
Chapter 6. Isaiah continued to be God's mouthpiece giving prophesy for God and a big
portion of the prophesy was about the Messiah, the Redeemer of Isreal and of the world.
The context in Isaiah doesn't just start and stop with one or two verses. Isaiah is
continuing on from chapter to chapter so they are tied together. We see references as to
what is going to happen in the future, we see references to Messiah, we see times of
great trial and times of great Messianic conquests. They are woven throughout Isaiah
for a reason. Most of Isaiah is prophesy and we find Messiah in the midst of it.
I want to point your attention to chapter 11 again. We are told that Messiah will come
out of the stump of Jesse in verse 1 and that the "Root of Jesse will stand as a banner
for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious", in verse
10. We see that Messiah is both the Root of Jesse and the shoot of Jesse. That brings
up the question "How can Messiah be both the Root and the shoot?" You might not
agree with the answer, I understand that most Jew don't believe that Messiah is Divine,
but if you look at Chapter 9 and verse 6 you'll see what I'm talking about. The Messiah
will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
I want you to think about this for a little while.
God bless you.
daddyugi said:Hello chair,
I'm glad you agree that it seems Messianic in nature, indeed, a lot of Isaiah seems to be
filled with Messianic messages. One of the reasons is, like I've said before, everything is
to be taken in context. In Isaiah chapter 6, we see Isaiah's vision of God and it terrified
him. If we really see God as He is in this text, it should terrify us as well. Isaiah see
God as the angels see Him, Holy, Holy, Holy. He falls on his face and exclaims that he
is ruined. In our language, he'd be saying "I am so screwed" because of his sin and the
sin of his nation and because he had seen the King (not Elvis), and the LORD of hosts.
We see an angel take an ember from the alter and lay it on Isaiah's lips and tells him that
his iniquities is taken away and his sin forgiven. Then God speaks. "Whom shall I send
and who will go for Us?" Isaiah's response is "Here am I. Send me", and that is what
God did. God sent Isaiah to be His mouthpiece and He didn't just stop with the end of
Chapter 6. Isaiah continued to be God's mouthpiece giving prophesy for God and a big
portion of the prophesy was about the Messiah, the Redeemer of Isreal and of the world.
The context in Isaiah doesn't just start and stop with one or two verses. Isaiah is
continuing on from chapter to chapter so they are tied together. We see references as to
what is going to happen in the future, we see references to Messiah, we see times of
great trial and times of great Messianic conquests. They are woven throughout Isaiah
for a reason. Most of Isaiah is prophesy and we find Messiah in the midst of it.
I want to point your attention to chapter 11 again. We are told that Messiah will come
out of the stump of Jesse in verse 1 and that the "Root of Jesse will stand as a banner
for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious", in verse
10. We see that Messiah is both the Root of Jesse and the shoot of Jesse. That brings
up the question "How can Messiah be both the Root and the shoot?" You might not
agree with the answer, I understand that most Jew don't believe that Messiah is Divine,
but if you look at Chapter 9 and verse 6 you'll see what I'm talking about. The Messiah
will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
I want you to think about this for a little while.
God bless you.
chair said:Well, let's see what we have so far.
We have Isaiah 53, which I maintain is not Messianic at all.
We have the fact that Isaiah the prophet actually made prophecies, which is not surprising.
Some of Isaiah's prophecies have to deal with the Messianic age - agreed. But it is not the overpowering theme of Isaiah. There are many chapters that deal with political events in his time and moral issues as well.
I believe that I pointed out Chapter 11 to you. Chapter 11 of Isaiah does talk about a Messianic figure. In the begining we read of the Messiah being a shoot out of the trunk of Jesse. In verse 10 the term used is root. This is poetic language, and I am not sure how you want to use this to prove anything. You should spell this out, since it is really not obvious to me.
Chapter 11 does not stop there. This is where I have a big problem with the Isaiah proofs of Jesus. Read verses 11 till the end of the chapter. I have, and it is Messianic in nature, and Jesus does not fit the bill (yes, I know that the second coming is supposed to take care of that, but that will only convince the convinced). Not only that, but the Messiah in this chapter has nothing to do with the Christian concept of the Messiah at all. He is going to do tremendous things for the Jews, and be a banner for the nations etc. Where is his crucifixion? Where does his death atone for sins? Where is original sin? Not here.
Chapter 9 verse 6 is a popular one in these discussions. Here it is! The Messiah has names that sound like god-names! Therefore, he must be God! Hurray!
Well, frankly, it is not that convincing. Why are these important things hidden in these hints, buried in Isaiah? But there is another big problem with this. Hebrew names (even "Isaiah") often include reference to God. This is true of my own name - Joel, as well.
In fact, I personally know people with two of the names that Isaiah mentions (Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace), and none of them are God. By the way, the translation of Avi-Ad to Everlasting Father is a pretty lousy translation. It should be more like - "My Father is Everlasting", which is not a name God would have (well, I suppose that Christian theory can handle this by splitting up God, but remember that I am not Christian).
In short, so far you have not shown me anything that I haven't seen before, and nothing particularly convincing.
I do have two requests:
Please spell out what you think verses prove. Don't assume that I see them the way you do, or that they are obvious.
I plan on leaving this forum at the end of the month (I am wasting too much time at it), so let's try to move this along.
Thanks
It is a well laid-out site, that is run by a "Jews-for-Jesus" type of outfit. They present THEIR version of teh Jewish viewpoint, and then attack it. It is far from an even-handed presentation of both sides of teh discussion.jeremiah said:To chair and others who are planning to discuss verses with him concerning the Messiah:
Since you plan on leaving at the end of the month, I think this site would be most worth the study, and speed things up. www.hadavar.org/antimissionary.html
Because chair reads the Bible in Hebrew and most of us do not, we need to refer to people who also read Hebrew fluently, and also believe that Yeshua is the Messiah. The site states both positions, and shows how to counter "antimissionary" arguments.
Coming from a messianic congregation I am aware of how Orthodox Jews interpret many of what are clear messianic passages to us, and are actually quoted by Yeshua and the apostles as referring to Him {Himself}.
I am also aware of how they quote more modern rabbis in deference to the ancient rabbis when they conflict on the messianic interpretation of a passage.
I am also aware that they have excluded Isaiah 53 and several other prophetic passages from the modern haftarah readings on Shabbat. Readings which were used prior to the New Testament writings, and then coincidentally,and systematically excluded, by most synagogues. Isaiah 61;1-2 is another example of many.
This site does a lot of the legwork that would have to be done by reading, or sifting through, all of the Talmud, which includes the ancient rabbis messianic commentaries.
mighty_duck said:That's easy.
1. Don't you want to go to heaven? The only way is through Christ. You have so little to lose and so much to gain by following him, you would be a fool not to. When you are judged, you will be without excuse, since I told you about Him right here.
2. You don't need to be convinced, you already know Christ in your heart. You are willfully ignorant
3. Because of the impossibility of the contrary.
[/Sarcasm]
This is about the best you can hope for here..
chair said:It is a well laid-out site, that is run by a "Jews-for-Jesus" type of outfit. They present THEIR version of teh Jewish viewpoint, and then attack it. It is far from an even-handed presentation of both sides of teh discussion.
jeremiah said:Yes, I agree it is a well laid out site. I think that they were quite clear that they present the views of a particular anti missionary Jew who used the stated arguments to dissuade other Jews from believing in Yeshua as Messiah.
The worst you could say is that they present the viewpoint of one Jewish man, who was working in concert with many others of the Jewish faith. He has since become a messianic and "lets us in" on the arguments, that he, and supposedly many others used, and are still using. I know, because I hear them often myself from orthodox and conservative Jews.
I think your use of the word "attack" is understandable but one could also see it as a "defense under fire".
When I read orthodox Jewish sites that "defend" their beliefs and "attack" Christianity, I seldom see them as "even handed". Perhaps you could give us a website that is.
This one, Ha Davar, is about as even handed as I know of, on my side of our beliefs.
Hi YourThrone,YourThrone said:Forgive me for just jumping right in:
How do you know that there's a heaven? Christians believe there's a heaven and hell after you die, now most people would consider this planet hell because of all the diseases, kids dying, drugs, crime, people being murdered and so fourth.
Do you actually believe God would have made two hells? Is it just remotely possible or probable that earth is hell and once you die, it's heaven?
chair said:I doubt that an even-handed site exists. Why would it? Who who put up such a site? So I think that you have to look at seperate sites with the two viewpoints. The lack of first-hand knowledge of Hebrew on the Christian side will always be a weak point.
Jews, including myself, think of ourselves as being under attack by these groups for the simple reason that "Messianic Jew" organizations are missionary groups out to draw Jews away from their own faith into a form of Christianity. Yes, I know that they claim to be really Jewish, even the only true Jews, but that is their own claim, not how the Jewish community views them. In fact, their pretense that they are in fact "Jewish" is even more upsetting in my mind, since it is so dishonest.
daddyugi said:Hello chair,
I'll review my points. In Isaiah 53 which you don't believe is Messianic, I pointed out that God has to have sin dealt with.
His unnamed servant dies for the sin of many. The sacrifice was set up to forgive sins and in the Bible (Old Testament) we
find that animals are sacrificed, but here we see the sacrifice is God's servant. I have read many times at many websites
that this is talking about Israel, but if you read verse 8, you find that he was cut off and he had no descendants. If this is about
Israel, then when Messiah comes, who will he rule? So, this verse can not be about Israel, but about God's sacrificing His
servant for the sin of many. What sin is this verse talking about? What is sin? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Judaism
defines sin to be a violation of divine commandment.. I asked you earlier if you ever had to teach children to sin. Well, the
answer to that question is no. You can't get around this, there is an inherited sin nature. Everyone of your and my ancestors
sinned, we sin, and our descendants will sin.
You are the one who pointed out Isaiah Chapter 11, I did not mean to make it sound like I did, I was just trying to direct your attention back to that chapter. I never said that Messiah's crucifixion was found here, I never said that we find
atonement for sin here, and I never said anything about original sin being found here. I was unaware that vs 10 was poetic,
but since I'm not familiar with the Hebrew language, it's not surprising. However, what I wanted to point out was what if my
studying of the Hebrew words for root (sheresh - a root (literal and figurative) and shoot (choter - a twig) was true. What if
Isaiah was really saying that the root that grows out of the stump of Jesse (the Messiah) is also the root of Jesse. This is what
I want you to consider "Messiah was around before Jesse and will be around after Jesse." What if Isaiah wasn't being poetic
but was being literal, after all, he would know, he was a prophet of God. I'm not asking you to accept this, just consider it.
I have read the rest of the chapter and, actually, the Christian view of Messiah does accept this as part of the chapter. We
believe that when Messiah returns, he will make war the the Beast, False Prophet and all the armies assembled against Him.
Chapter 9 - I was under the impression that Ab-Ad was the translation for Everlasting Father, but I like your translation even
better. The Messiah being called "my Father is Everlasting" sound a lot more like the son of God to me. Thanks for pointing
that out to me. And, yes, a lot of Christian do point to this Scripture, and that was my intention until I read you post. What I
would like to point out to you now is verse 7. In particular, the fact that when Messiah comes and establishes his kingdom,
he will rule from that time on forever, meaning that he will not die. If Messiah is just a man, he would not live forever. Even
God's servant Moses didn't live forever.
OK, I'd like you to read Genesis 49:8-10. Jacob is blessing his children and he comes to Judah, his fourth. Judah's life was not exactly exemplary. He wanted to kill Joseph and when they wouldn't kill him, Judah wanted to sell him. He later
had sexual relations with his daughter-in-law whom he thought was a prostitute(Genesis 47 and 48). We still see that
Judah was given rulership and that Shiloh would come through him and his descendants. As we read Genesis 49:10 we
see "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him
shall be the obedience of the people." My understanding of the scepter is the identity of the tribe and the ability to have
the right to apply and enforce the Mosaic law including the right to carry out capitol punishment. Israel lost the right to carry
out capitol punishment sometime around 6-7 A.D. when Caponius, a Roman Procurator, was put in the position of authority
after King Herod's son was dethroned. The fact that Israel lost that right was mentioned by both Josephus and the Talmud.
By 70 A.D., we see all semblance of a national identity was gone after the Temple was destroyed. Now, the only way this
prophesy could be fulfilled is for Messiah to come before Israel lost its ability to rule themselves and carry out capitol
punishment. For centuries after the assension of Caponius, Israel had no sovereignty and no self rule until 1948. We talking
almost 19 centuries that Israel didn't have it septer. The only way this prophesy to be true is for Shiloh (Messiah) to have
come before 6-7 A.D. Now I will bring Jesus into the picture. Jesus would have been around the age of 10-11 at the time
that Israel lost it's sovereignty, lost its scepter. I'll stop there and wait for your reply.
God bless you.
amosman said:I would not except a Messiah that done away with Torah either. The True Messiah would
never say the Torah is now old and useless.
However I do believe that the man that was crucified on a tree 1975 years ago was The Holy One Of Israel. The Torah makes it clear that blood must be spilt to attone for sin.
I would think as a Jew you would agree that transgresstion of Torah is sin. So we need a
sacrifice acceptable to YHVH to cover our sin. Just as YHVH profided a ram to Abraham
in place of Isaac, so YHVH provided the only sacrifice that could attone for the sins of
so many.
The christian church has completely paganized The Messiah. If I were you I would not believe a word they say. If you will read the New Testament with a Hebrew mind set and remember that the translators hated jews. So use that Strongs and other resources to get through their bias.
If you do come to the understanding that Yeshua is the Messiah, whatever you do don't join one of those pagan christian churchs. Just be the best Jew you can be, that's what Yeshua did.