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mercytruth
Guest
Anna,So, this is a criticism/objection we are unable to answer?
Anna
Judaism does give the identity of the young woman, or ‘almah’ in Isaiah 7:14.
They only say that the Hebrew word almah, means young woman.
On the other hand, the Septuagint version of the Tanakh transcribed into Greek by Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew word, ‘almah’ to the Greek word, ‘parthenos’, which definitely means virgin.
So, we have a draw. The original Hebrew vs. the Greek translatinon done by Hebrew/Greek
literate Jewish scribes.
God’s peace be with you
micah
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Anna_Scott
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mercytruth
Guest
Anna,
There is no issue of ‘two’ women, but to those who believe that this prophecy has a contemporary and a future application.
The contemporary identity of this young woman within the timeframe of King Ahaz and the last 65 years of Samaria and of the Northern Kingdom of Israel is not a critical question that needs to be answered by the Jewish faith.
The OP’s original question has to do with a Jewish website which was defending it’s faith regarding the identiy of the Messiah within the context of their monotheistic faith, the Tanakh and Rabbinic Judaism. They are simply being apologists.
It seems to me that the biggest hurdle of Christianity is in explaining the ‘mystery’ of the Trinity from this standpoint. That is, how can the one true God become a man, and the Messiah? Mysteries can not be rationally explained, nor easily proven in the Tanakh.
So why try?
Even the apostle Paul said, "No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
God’s peace be with you
micah
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Anna_Scott
Guest
Micah,
The fact that no one will explain how this prophesy was fulfilled in a contemporary context is very disappointing to me, Jewish objections aside. If the prophesy was fulfilled in the time of King Ahaz, there would have been a woman who bore a child, whose coming of age, provided a time frame for events to occur. If this were the case, how can one read a “virginal” conception into a future prophesy? Surely, this question can be answered.
Anna
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mercytruth
Guest
You are not the only one who is disappointed. If the prophetic writings were simple to interpret, we would not have a 1001 interpretations of the Book of Revelation.
Like much of the prophetic writings, one can only speculate as to much of their interior meanings and look to the NT and the early church fathers for understanding. We must be like David who said,
My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
God’s peace be with you
micah
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Anna_Scott
Guest
So, we are back to “I dunno, just have faith, yo!.” (phrase borrowed from Mr. Wolf)
Anna
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Anna_Scott
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Micah,
These Jewish apologists did not bring the issues to CAF. The Catholic OP brought these issues to the table. How many have we actually answered?
Anna
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mercytruth
Guest
I personally would not challenge any of them. I think that all of them may have some validity.
God’s peace be with you
micah
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SteveVH
Guest
It occurs to me, after reading these objections to the Christian understanding, that there is probably little difference from the objections of the Jews of Jesus’ time. That is why they did not recognize him.
They did not understand that the Messiah did not come to lead them as a earthly king against their enemies, or to build a Temple of stone. They would not recognize one born in a stable, a carpenter from Nazareth, an itinerant teacher, as the Messiah, therefore they are not looking for Jesus in the prophecies. They are looking for someone else.
The old adage that the New Testament is hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New is most appropriate in this case.
They did not understand that the Messiah did not come to lead them as a earthly king against their enemies, or to build a Temple of stone. They would not recognize one born in a stable, a carpenter from Nazareth, an itinerant teacher, as the Messiah, therefore they are not looking for Jesus in the prophecies. They are looking for someone else.
The old adage that the New Testament is hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New is most appropriate in this case.
Christ is the Third Temple. “Destroy this Temple and I will rebuild it in three days.”
Or, gather all people from the ends of the earth. Christ expanded God’s family to the gentiles as well and he will gather all in the heavenly Jerusalem. This does not, from a Christian perspective, mean a literal gathering of all Jews back to Israel.
This is obviously at the second coming.
Christ commanded his Church to “go and teach all nations…”. The final realization of this will occur when Christ returns.
Certainly not in the ways the Jews expected, but they were or will be fulfilled nonetheless.
Of course they believe they were to be fulfilled outright, but they believed a lot of things about the Messiah that turned out to just be wrong. I am not aware of any prophecies of the second coming (someone correct me if I’m wrong). The second coming was revealed by Christ (God himself), not one of the early prophets.
It should be noted that when a village refused to hear Jesus Luke 9:56. The disciples wanted to rain fire down on them. When Jesus heard this he rebuked his own disciples. I use this passage not to show that the Samaritans were bad and the disciples wanted to destroy them, just that we shouldn’t attack those with different views. The quote by st Francis epitomizes the nature of being a Christian. We should follow such advice.
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SteveVH
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If I have offended anyone that is certainly not my intention in the least. Please accept my apology.
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Anna_Scott
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Kaninchen,
I think your comments sum up the thread, and why such discussions are often unfruitful.
Christians start with the belief that Jesus is the Messiah, and we use the NT to prove the NT is true. We have difficulty thinking any other way.
Jews measure all Messianic claims against the Hebrew Scriptures. As the Tanakh stands, one must admit Jesus did not fulfill many of the prophecies. There is no way to prove Jesus will fulfill the prophecies in the second coming, unless you start with the assumption that the NT is true–an assumption that is not in Jewish thinking or belief.
We, as Christians, are unable to separate ourselves from belief in Jesus as Messiah and the NT Scripture we hold as Divinely inspired.
The Jews are unable to separate themselves from the Tanakh—and particularly the Shema, also held as Divinely inspired.
So, that makes a discussion like this rather difficult.
As Kaninchen said, “For a couple of thousand years, the argument has gone on.”
I don’t think we are going to resolve the issues on the forums. We can, however, love and respect one another.
Peace and blessings to all,
Anna
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Kaninchen
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Well, I’ve been around internet discussions for over a decade and a half now and long ago lost count of the number of “Why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?” threads that have ended up in a mire of ‘proof text’ frustrations.
So, I regularly try to draw attention to the problem of differing views of the NT, because the whole ‘proof text’ question begins and ends just there, as does much else, of course.
Experience tells me that Christian posters who are interested in what Judaism is ‘about’ seem to end up more enriched in their understanding of their own faith than the ones who start off expounding what they see as the obvious proofs of Christianity only to discover that there is no ‘knock-out’ argument.
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SteveVH
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One of the better examples, in my opinion, of how the New Testament sheds light on the Old, is the beginning of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus. I used to just skip it so I could “get on with the good stuff”. Then it was pointed out to me that the purpose of the genealogy was this: Matthew was addressing educated Jews and numerology was very important to them. The genealogy sets forth 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David to the Babylonian exile, and 14 generations from the Babylonian exile to the birth of Jesus. We have 3 sets of 14 or 6 sets of 7. Jesus was the seventh seven, representing perfection (the number 7 represents perfection). This has nothing to do with prophecy, as far as I know, but it is a truth, and an astounding truth at that, just based upon the facts of the family tree found in the Old Testament. Did it just turn out that way? Maybe. Or does it mean that which Matthew implied it meant?
As Christians, as Anna said, we really cannot separate our knowledge of the New Testament from the Old Testatment. A Jew must read the Old Testament with the assumption that Jesus is not the person to which it is pointing. Yes, it is somewhat of a conundrum and I don’t see any way around it.
As far as the realtionship between Jews and Christians we can never forget that the Jews are our elder brothers and sisters in the faith and God’s chosen people. They have never stopped being God’s chosen people. We believe it has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, they do not, but Judaism is intrinsic to Christianity, We even have a Jew as the head of our Church.
As Christians, as Anna said, we really cannot separate our knowledge of the New Testament from the Old Testatment. A Jew must read the Old Testament with the assumption that Jesus is not the person to which it is pointing. Yes, it is somewhat of a conundrum and I don’t see any way around it.
As far as the realtionship between Jews and Christians we can never forget that the Jews are our elder brothers and sisters in the faith and God’s chosen people. They have never stopped being God’s chosen people. We believe it has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, they do not, but Judaism is intrinsic to Christianity, We even have a Jew as the head of our Church.
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Anna_Scott
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Steve,One of the better examples, in my opinion, of how the New Testament sheds light on the Old, is the beginning of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus. I used to just skip it so I could “get on with the good stuff”. Then it was pointed out to me that the purpose of the genealogy was this: Matthew was addressing educated Jews and numerology was very important to them. The genealogy sets forth 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David to the Babylonian exile, and 14 generations from the Babylonian exile to the birth of Jesus. We have 3 sets of 14 or 6 sets of 7. Jesus was the seventh seven, representing perfection (the number 7 represents perfection). This has nothing to do with prophecy, as far as I know, but it is a truth, and an astounding truth at that, just based upon the facts of the family tree found in the Old Testament. Did it just turn out that way? Maybe. Or does it mean that which Matthew implied it meant?
As Christians, as Anna said, we really cannot separate our knowledge of the New Testament from the Old Testatment. A Jew must read the Old Testament with the assumption that Jesus is not the person to which it is pointing. Yes, it is somewhat of a conundrum and I don’t see any way around it.
As far as the realtionship between Jews and Christians we can never forget that the Jews are our elder brothers and sisters in the faith and God’s chosen people. They have never stopped being God’s chosen people. We believe it has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, they do not, but Judaism is intrinsic to Christianity, We even have a Jew as the head of our Church.
Beautifully said.
Peace and blessings,
Anna
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Kaninchen
Guest
This is a rather good example of what I often describe here as the paradigm most Christian posters have that Christianity is Judaism+Jesus and Judaism is Christianity-Jesus. It’s mistaken and it’s one of the reasons that discussions often get bogged down in futility because the two religions don’t ‘work’ in the same way and have entirely different foci - what has meaning in one can be meaningless in the other.
In other words, your conundrum is a conundrum because of the way it’s set up to be so.
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SteveVH
Guest
It would appear from your comments that you have a way around this conundrum. I’m all ears.This is a rather good example of what I often describe here as the paradigm most Christian posters have that Christianity is Judaism+Jesus and Judaism is Christianity-Jesus. It’s mistaken and it’s one of the reasons that discussions often get bogged down in futility because the two religions don’t ‘work’ in the same way and have entirely different foci - what has meaning in one can be meaningless in the other.
In other words, your conundrum is a conundrum because of the way it’s set up to be so.
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SteveVH
Guest
I’m a bit puzzled by this statement. Have not the Jews been waiting for the Messiah who God promised since Adam and Eve? Have you not been waiting for the lamb that God would provide which was spoken of by Abraham? We believe this was fulfilled in Jesus. How is that setting up a conundrum that, apparently, could be avoided if we only understood better?This is a rather good example of what I often describe here as the paradigm most Christian posters have that Christianity is Judaism+Jesus and Judaism is Christianity-Jesus. It’s mistaken and it’s one of the reasons that discussions often get bogged down in futility because the two religions don’t ‘work’ in the same way and have entirely different foci - what has meaning in one can be meaningless in the other.
In other words, your conundrum is a conundrum because of the way it’s set up to be so.
Thanks.
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Kaninchen
Guest
To use one of my Kaninchenisms, Christian posters have to realise that there are not always Jewish answers to Christian questions. A major reason for this is ‘framing’, questions are often asked that assume meanings and interpretations that are inherent to Christianity rather than Judaism - as if Judaism were Christianity minus Jesus and Christianity Judaism plus Jesus - and we’re expected to give our answers assuming those meanings and interpretations.
It doesn’t work.
So, what I was saying is that, in order to get better Jewish answers to Christian questions, Christians should come to terms with what Judaism is ‘about’, how it ‘works’, what its foci are, etc.
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