Christmas reality

[theoaf]

HI, someone I love does not believe in christmas! I just wanted to see what everyone else could suggest to help respond lovingly to their objections, such as:

the New Testament is not historical

The slaughter of the innocents was likely a made up story

Herod died in 4BC so he wasn’t around to order the slaughter of the innocents as the bible states

the hebrew word translated as ‘virgin’ in Is 14:7 should just be translated ‘young woman’ indicating that Mary was not a virgin when she conceived Jesus

christians mis-interpret the Torah (no Jews looking for their messiah to be born in bethlehem, or announced by a star, or laid in a manger, etc, and appealing to scripture to answer those questions is a biased source)

I guess I’d like to compile an intellectually compelling yet loving response to this type of charge. Looked for a previous thread on this subject unsuccesfully.

God Bless,
T ><>

 

[Spirithound]

the New Testament is not historical

The slaughter of the innocents was likely a made up story

Herod died in 4BC so he wasn’t around to order the slaughter of the innocents as the bible states

the hebrew word translated as ‘virgin’ in Is 14:7 should just be translated ‘young woman’ indicating that Mary was not a virgin when she conceived Jesus

christians mis-interpret the Torah (no Jews looking for their messiah to be born in bethlehem, or announced by a star, or laid in a manger, etc, and appealing to scripture to answer those questions is a biased source)

Regarding the historicity of the NT, try another search on these fora, I’m sure you’ll find something.
There were several rulers named Herod, again, search the fora again, there are several historian-type ppl here.
The Hebrew “almah” can indeed mean “young woman”, but it also means “virgin”. The important proof here is that Matthew uses the Greek for “virgin”, which has that specific meaning.
Regarding interpretation of the Torah, Jesus interpreted for a couple apostles on the road to Emmaus.
My best advice, pray before you do anything.

 

[TOME]

Theoaf,
I am sure if you chech out different theads found in this forum you will find ample discussion on the topics you raised here. And you may find that I have been involved in several of these discussions.

However I am beginning to think that more often than not we do ourselves a disservice by psrticipating in much of the discussion or better we do a disservice in the way these discussions progress. Often our diologues turn into debates over which stories are historically true or not. But I believe what really ends up happening is we end up debating what we mean by “History” or “Historical” and it seems we divide into two basic lines of thinking; one group looks as history in a literal sense and the second group while acknowledging history in the literal sense still find an historical basis for what is found in the scriptures rejects the concept that all of scripture is history in the sense that they are accurate records of events as is. Myself, I fall into the latter group.

Still, I believe each group and each person is sincere in his or her belief and we all are united in trying to come to a deeper understanding of God’s Word. And here is why I think we do a disservice to ourselves. As the old saying goes we miss the forest for the trees and end up spending too much time arguing over the meaning of history and fail to appreciate the insights or revelation given us through scripture as interperted for for by the Church. I think a good example of what I am trying to get across is to look at the infancy narratives but to look at them in the light the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Why does the catechism spend so little space on the historic merit of these narratives but looks at a deeper meaning of them? My answer is because you will find a lot more wisdom in the catechism than you will find here and this is the approach we should all take, remembering, however, the answers of the Catechism should be used as the basis of a starting point of ones studies and quest for greater knowledge and not the end point of our efforts to know.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

HI, someone I love does not believe in christmas! I just wanted to see what everyone else could suggest to help respond lovingly to their objections, such as:

the New Testament is not historical

That could mean several different things - it’s too imprecise to affirm or deny without being misleading​

The slaughter of the innocents was likely a made up story

This could be the case - Catholics are certainly not “bad Catholics”, or unorthodox, or any such thing, if they hold this.​

Herod died in 4BC so he wasn’t around to order the slaughter of the innocents as the bible states

That is when he died - if that makes difficulties for Matthew 2, so be it.​

the hebrew word translated as ‘virgin’ in Is 14:7 should just be translated ‘young woman’ indicating that Mary was not a virgin when she conceived Jesus

This confuses the meaning of words with the statements of the gospel about a particular female:​

• almah in Isaiah 7.14 does not mean virgin,but young woman
• betulah is the OT Hebrew for virgin - it is not used in Isaiah 7.14
• parthenos in Matthew 1.23 does mean virgin - as the context shows
• So the BVM can perfectly well be a virgin - as for Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7.14: that’s an example of a Christian application of the “fuller sense” of an OT text, to a NT reality (the BVM in this instance). It’s a Christian re-application of an OT text which in its OT context, that of Isaiah 7, cannot possibly refer to Jesus Himself; as the chapter is full of details which have nothing to do with the NT. (In the first century, ripping verses out of context was normal in OT interpretation.)

Christians mis-interpret the Torah (no Jews looking for their messiah to be born in bethlehem, or announced by a star, or laid in a manger, etc, and appealing to scripture to answer those questions is a biased source)

From a Jewish POV this is true (BTW - I think you meant the Tanakh = the whole Jewish Bible]; the Torah is the first five books only).​

There is re-interpretation within the Tanakh - as with Daniel’s 70 weeks of years, which are based on Jeremiah’s 70 years; to name just one example. If that sort of thing is allowed within the Tanakh, why can’t Jews who accept Jesus as Messiah re-interpret passages in the Tanakh to apply to Him ? The Dead Sea sect applied part of the Tanakh to themselves; so why can’t Christians carry out a similar operation of re-application & re-interpretation ?

I guess I’d like to compile an intellectually compelling yet loving response to this type of charge. Looked for a previous thread on this subject unsuccesfully.

God Bless,
T ><>

I hope this is helpful ​

 

[epostle]

HI, someone I love does not believe in christmas! I just wanted to see what everyone else could suggest to help respond lovingly to their objections, such as:

the New Testament is not historical.

That is correct. The New Testament writers never intended to give historical accounts, but they wrote historical portraits. There are several collaborating sources outside the Bible that support the events of the New Testament. For example, Josephus, who was not a Christian, a back-slidden Jew, and commissioned by Ceasar, hardly biased in favor of Christians, wrote extensively on bible times, and has been used as a reference by scholars for centuries. Of New Testament extant manuscripts, the earliest go all the way back to around A.D. 130, though most are probably extant to the 3rd and 4th centuries. In any regard, this is remarkable. There is no other writing of antiquity where the copies are so close to the originals. Even standards that we think nothing about, like Plato, the extant copies of Plato are 1200 years after Plato’s death. For the New Testament it is mere decades giving the New Testament an unheard of historical and documentary veracity.

The slaughter of the innocents was likely a made up story.

It’s a recent popular theory. But so what? Why is it important? It’s not an article of faith. What’s hard to believe is how anyone could be so evil as to order the deaths of innocent children, but Herod killed his own sons, that we have outside proof of. But lack of outside collaborating evidence does not mean it didn’t happen, it just means the outside evidence of it is lacking.

Herod died in 4BC so he wasn’t around to order the slaughter of the innocents as the bible states.

The death of Herod is important in its relation to the birth of Christ. The eclipse mentioned by Josephus (Ant., XVII, vi, 4), who also gives the length of Herod’s reign – thirty-seven years from the time he was appointed by the Romans, 40 B. C.; or thirty-four from the death of Antigonus, 37 B. C. (Ant., XVII, viii, 1)-- fixes the death of Herod in the spring of 750 A. U. C., or 4 B. C. Christ was born before Herod’s death (Matthew 2:1), but how long before is uncertain: the possible dates lie between 746 and 750 A. U. C. (see a summary of opinions and reasons in Gigot, “Outlines of N. T. Hist.”, 42, 43).
newadvent.org/cathen/07289c.htm

the hebrew word translated as ‘virgin’ in Is 14:7 should just be translated ‘young woman’ indicating that Mary was not a virgin when she conceived Jesus.

So there are no young Hebrew women who are virgins?
And what is the “unbiased” source of such a translation?

christians mis-interpret the Torah (no Jews looking for their messiah to be born in bethlehem, or announced by a star, or laid in a manger, etc, and appealing to scripture to answer those questions is a biased source)

The Torah is not misinterpreted, what is hidden in it is revealed in the New Testament. The Judaic approach to the scriptures is used as part of interpretation. Herod consulted the Jews, who told him Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. The Jews believed the Messiah would come and restore Israel, how it happened they did not expect, and scripture is not a biased source, it is a primary source for information. Books by angry atheists, revisionists, and bigots are biased, not the Bible.

I guess I’d like to compile an intellectually compelling yet loving response to this type of charge. Looked for a previous thread on this subject unsuccesfully.

Theoaf, I think your friend has been exposed to anti-Christian literature, which is a form of spiritual pornography. They didn’t come up with all this garbage on their own.

 

[colliric]

HI, someone I love does not believe in christmas! I just wanted to see what everyone else could suggest to help respond lovingly to their objections, such as:

the New Testament is not historical

The slaughter of the innocents was likely a made up story
**
Herod died in 4BC **so he wasn’t around to order the slaughter of the innocents as the bible states

the hebrew word translated as ‘virgin’ in Is 14:7 should just be translated ‘young woman’ indicating that Mary was not a virgin when she conceived Jesus

christians mis-interpret the Torah (no Jews looking for their messiah to be born in bethlehem, or announced by a star, or laid in a manger, etc, and appealing to scripture to answer those questions is a biased source)

I guess I’d like to compile an intellectually compelling yet loving response to this type of charge. Looked for a previous thread on this subject unsuccesfully.

God Bless,
T ><>

Actually Historians really should no longer generally accept that date because the sole source material was Josephus’s Antiquities and it was recently discovered that manuscripts from earlier than the middle ages indicate that his two references to herod’s death year are inconsistent. He contradicts himself.

One reference indicated 4BC(this was the reference to his death year by way of listing his linage) and the straight forward reference to the year in another part of the work indicates rather straightforwardly 1BC.

Unfortunatly someone who copied the work I the middle ages decided, for whatever reason, to remove the inconsistency in the work. This has led to general confusion over the year of his death because Christian tradition said 1BC, but antiquties was thought to indicate 4BC until this “error correction” was discovered.

 

[colliric]

Here is more information:

"It has also been determined that scribal error compromised other accounts first century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus’ dates concerning Herod’s family. Copies of his history after the year 1544 indicate Herod actually died later than previously believed in the year that would correspond to our year 1BC. In all copies of Antiquities of the Jews 18.106 prior to 1544, Josephus places Herod’s son Philip’s death in the twenty-second year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, after ruling for thirty-seven years after the death of his father Herod the Great instead of in the twentieth year of Tiberius as recorded in many copies of the history after 1544. The copyist evidently mistakenly failed to write 22 and instead recorded 20 years and the mistake was repeated by other copyist.** The older account from Josephus’ history therefore places the death of Herod in the year 1BC **our time (see The Works of Josephus, page 483, footnote c).
"

agapebiblestudy.com/documents/Dating%20the%20Birth%20of%20Jesus%20of%20Nazareth.htm

The original catholic belief of 1BC suddenly looks a whole lot stronger that it did before.