Jews' Eternal Fate?

[Hastrman]

Jesus was just talking about his Melchizedek priesthood which was around ministering before Abram became Abraham – I am him that you wait for, Messiah who is after Melchizedek. I don’t see where what you say discounts that. Same way the blind man explained who he was.

No, because had he meant, “I am he that was around before Abraham,” he would have said exactly that–Greek explicitly marks its relative constructions (Semitic languages do too, though less explicitly). Greek is not a figurative or vague language–it has two words for “and”! Your interpretation would only work with very bizarre diction that, aside from rendering the statement meaningless, cannot possibly be justified by reference to any Indo-European or Semitic literature.

Also, he did at other times explicitly make reference to the Melchizedek priesthood. If he’d wanted them to have that understanding, they would have. Unless the one *you *accept as God’s Moshiach was so stupid he couldn’t get himself understood by anybody but one person two millennia later, writing on internet forums.

But please, explain to me why your interpretation, based on the English text, is more authoritative than that of people fluent in Koine Greek reading the original text. And why those hearing it had the reaction they had: they tried to stone him as a blasphemer, because he arrogated the Holy Name unto himself. He probably spoke the sentence in Aramaic, and I guarantee you the Pharisees understood that better than you do, if you speak it at all. They wrote the Talmud in it not a hundred years later, after all.

Would you be so kind as to discuss the use of emphatic and construct states in possessive constructions as they occur at various stages of the Aramaic language?

PS: Some Jewish member of this forum, say Valke2, sorry to drag you into this, but I need some backup on something. Faith of Abraham’s interpretation of Torah, and the Moshiach, is very far from being the normal Jewish one, isn’t it? Aside from his accepting Jesus as the Messiah, I mean.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

No, because had he meant, “I am he that was around before Abraham,” he would have said exactly that–Greek explicitly marks its relative constructions (Semitic languages do too, though less explicitly). Greek is not a figurative or vague language–it has two words for “and”! Your interpretation would only work with very bizarre diction that, aside from rendering the statement meaningless, cannot possibly be justified by reference to any Indo-European or Semitic literature.

What? It works the same way it does with the blind man. You are dragging in a lot of unnecessary red herrings.

Also, he did at other times explicitly make reference to the Melchizedek priesthood. If he’d wanted them to have that understanding, they would have. Unless the one *you *accept as God’s Moshiach was so stupid he couldn’t get himself understood by anybody but one person two millennia later, writing on internet forums.

Sure he did, just by ever claiming to be Messiah in the first place, since we know from Psalms and Ezekiel Messiah was expected to be in that role making reconciliation for the people. That’s all Jesus was ever talking about in regards to himself, him being Messiah.

Jews never expected Messiah to be God incarnated, that’s a Gentile thing.

But please, explain to me why your interpretation, based on the English text, is more authoritative than that of people fluent in Koine Greek reading the original text. And why those hearing it had the reaction they had: they tried to stone him as a blasphemer, because he arrogated the Holy Name unto himself. He probably spoke the sentence in Aramaic, and I guarantee you the Pharisees understood that better than you do, if you speak it at all. They wrote the Talmud in it not a hundred years later, after all.

All the Greek in the word won’t help if you don’t get that he came to do one thing, and that’s to be Messiah which included this priesthood. Jesus never said he was God anymore than the blind man did, same phrase.

And they wanted to kill him before John 8:58 anyway.

John 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

Would you be so kind as to discuss the use of emphatic and construct states in possessive constructions as they occur at various stages of the Aramaic language?

Red herring gobbledygook. And that’s about it.

 

[Hastrman]

What? It works the same way it does with the blind man. You are dragging in a lot of unnecessary red herrings.

It certainly does not work the same as it does with the blind man, because the tenses of the two verbs contradict each other in John 8:58, which they certainly do not in Jn 9:8-9. “Before Abraham’s coming to be, I am,” is a meaningless sentence, unless the second verb refers to an eternal condition.

Jews never expected Messiah to be God incarnated, that’s a Gentile thing.

Shows what you know. The Gentiles, aside from not knowing they needed a Messiah, considered the Incarnation, if anything, more of a blasphemy and contradiction than the Jews did; have you read “De Naturae Divinae” by Cicero, or any of the Stoics on Christianity? Didn’t think so; so why do you think you have a right to discuss what Gentiles thought about God or the gods? Make it up all you like, but there’s textual records.

All the Greek in the word won’t help if you don’t get that he came to do one thing, and that’s to be Messiah which included this priesthood. Jesus never said he was God anymore than the blind man did, same phrase.

Except it contradicts the tenses; a present imperfect cannot possibly refer to anything like the same phase of time as an aorist. The blind man was using the present imperfect to talk about conditions discussed in the middle participle: related time frames! Jesus was talking about the time of Abraham, presuming to use first person verbs about it, and in the present tense, as though his verbs of being could not be inflected for tense or aspect–like that of God. You’re hallucinating that he would be referring to something else, yet not once is there a relative construction, which is simply impossible in Koine Greek. Koine Greek actually uses articles it’s so explicit, despite standard Greek not having them!

Same two words, but the second time he used them in an idiosyncratic manner, that can only have one–blasphemous if false–meaning.

Stop presuming to discuss concepts you do not grasp in the slightest. What are the odds you understand things that those who lived in the same milieu misinterpreted?

 

[catharina]

From Catholic (Christian) and Protestant (Christian) and Jehovas Witnesses (Christian) theological pointview, what would be the Eternal Fate of all Jews, who reject Jesus as Go-d/Son of G-d/Messiah/Man of G-d?

Karen (OP), I haven’t time to read all of this thread right now, but all Chritians should be aware of Paul’s teaching to the early Church in Rome.

St. Paul to the Romans, 11:25-29

25
4 I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise (in) your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in,
26
and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come out of Zion, he will turn away godlessness from Jacob;
27
and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
28
In respect to the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but in respect to election, they are beloved because of the patriarchs.
29
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

As verse 26 says: “all of Israel will be saved … .”
and in verse 29: “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”

On another note however, I can’t recall anyone
ever describing Jehovah’s Witnesses as Christians.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

It certainly does not work the same as it does with the blind man, because the tenses of the two verbs contradict each other in John 8:58, which they certainly do not in Jn 9:8-9. “Before Abraham’s coming to be, I am,” is a meaningless sentence, unless the second verb refers to an eternal condition.

It’s not meaningless at all unless you ignore everything he just talked about previous which I already showed related to the discussion of Melchizedek in Hebrews. He just basically said, “I am that Messiah you are expecting, the Melchizedek that was there before Abraham was Abraham.”

Shows what you know. The Gentiles, aside from not knowing they needed a Messiah, considered the Incarnation, if anything, more of a blasphemy and contradiction than the Jews did; have you read “De Naturae Divinae” by Cicero, or any of the Stoics on Christianity? Didn’t think so; so why do you think you have a right to discuss what Gentiles thought about God or the gods? Make it up all you like, but there’s textual records.

Gentiles always had man-gods from Egypt to Rome. It’s pointless to try to deny that Christianity fermented in ground thoroughly steeped in Hellenism and Greek mythology.

Stop presuming to discuss concepts you do not grasp in the slightest. What are the odds you understand things that those who lived in the same milieu misinterpreted?

Eh, you’re just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and getting frustrated it ain’t sticking, there is no difference than what Jesus was saying than what the blind man was saying. Yes, I’m the guy you think I am. For Jesus it was that he is Messiah and that priest like Melchizedek.

 

[Hastrman]

Gentiles always had man-gods from Egypt to Rome. It’s pointless to try to deny that Christianity fermented in ground thoroughly steeped in Hellenism and Greek mythology.

Forgive me, but you are now attempting to compare the Homoousion–which you do not understand–with the condition whose only technical name I know is Arahitogami–which you have never heard of. Do not presume to tell me about gentile religions; you embarrass yourself with your ignorance.

Also, you’re misreading the text most tendentiously.

He says, Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Not, “Your Father Abraham learned Torah from me and received from me the robe of Adam,” which would be a reference to Melchizedek.

His opponents say, with a very Jewish touch of kvetching rebuke, “You’re not 50, and you tell us you’ve seen Abraham?”

Now Jesus does not here say, “I gave him bread and wine,” or any other reference to Melchizedek–as would be called for by the rules that govern such allusions in Semitic cultures (tell me, how much Babylonian poetry have you read?). He says simply, “Prior to the coming-into-being of Abraham, I am.”

Now that can only have one meaning; God said it to Israel constantly: before your earliest fathers I am. The tenses again conflict, since the time of the fathers has passed away but God refers to His own being in the present tense (or the imperfect aspect, in a Semitic language). God is not stupid, so the conflict of tense/aspect is intentional: your fathers were in time, but I am not.

There is no possible other interpretation. He is using a literary trope reserved to Ha-Shem. There is one interpretation possible: aut deus aut homo malus. Either he is God or he is an evil man who claims divine honors. An honest Jew would say, since there is no other rational interpretation, “I hold that he was a bad man”–but might then add that he nonetheless did good (as God uses the wicked to accomplish good) by bringing Gentiles to God’s worship. But he cannot honestly think Jesus was the Messiah without also being God, and make up illiterate, laughably far-fetched cherry-pickings of the text to back it up.

There is incidentally only one direct reference to Melchizedek in the New Testament, according to every scripture scholar in the known universe.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

Forgive me, but you are now attempting to compare the Homoousion–which you do not understand–with the condition whose only technical name I know is Arahitogami–which you have never heard of. Do not presume to tell me about gentile religions; you embarrass yourself with your ignorance.

First you make the error of most Christians of mashing their idea of the Son in with the Father Jehovah of Exodus, so that even Trinity doctrine is compromised, making the Son as the Father of Israel.

But besides all that you apparently just don’t understand what Messiah does or how Jesus saves. He saves by being this High Priest Melchizedek who takes our prayers to God to make atonement for our sins. That is his primary function in addition to ruling as King of David.

So if you don’t even know what Messiah does as this priest, who is the bread we accept with the wine of the New Covenant of atonement he makes for us, then you are just lost on the issue. All that other fluff is just that, a bunch of nonsense complicating this simple concept.

Psalms 110:4 The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

And Jesus is also David’s son who was killed for his sin with Bathsheba, resurrected into Mary. So Jesus is the Son of David, and he is the Son of God by the Spirit of Adoption. He rules over us like God as Moses did.

But he isn’t born a God and never said anything of the sort, neither does the NT unless you are running on false assumption and doctrine without any understanding of what it is Messiah actually does for us.

 

[Hastrman]

But besides all that you apparently just don’t understand what Messiah does or how Jesus saves. He saves by being this High Priest Melchizedek who takes our prayers to God to make atonement for our sins. That is his primary function in addition to ruling as King of David.

I do not know what you are, but I am fairly sure you are no Jew. That is most certainly not the role of the Messiah in any kind of Judaism with which I am acquainted.

Please, Jews, I need help here: I don’t have the background in Judaism to refute this guy’s claims. But that is not Judaism’s view of the Messiah, is it?

 

[FaithofAbraham]

That is most certainly not the role of Ha-Moshiach in any kind of Judaism with which I am acquainted.

A lot of things aren’t as they should be, but hey, that’s life.

 

[Valke2]

I believe he is stating what he thinks the Messiah’s true role is, as opposed to what Jews think. Certianly Jews don’t believe the Messiah or anyone else is needed to take our prayers to God or that the Messiah will somehow atone for our sins.

We already have a method to do that and in any event, the Temple will be rebuilt when he gets here and quite possibly we will reinstitute sacrifices for atonement.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

I believe he is stating what he thinks the Messiah’s true role is, as opposed to what Jews think. Certianly Jews don’t believe the Messiah or anyone else is needed to take our prayers to God or that the Messiah will somehow atone for our sins.

We already have a method to do that and in any event, the Temple will be rebuilt when he gets here and quite possibly we will reinstitute sacrifices for atonement.

Like I said, Judaism ought to believe a lot of things it doesn’t, but that’s life.

Ezekiel 37:25 …and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.

Ezekiel 45:17 And it shall be the prince’s part …to make reconciliation for the house of Israel.

 

[Valke2]

well, if you ever get the job as “President of defining Judaism” let me know and I’ll change my beliefs accordingly. And if you read that chapter, you know that it is referring to animal and grain sacrifices in the Temple, not taking our prayers to God for attonement. And that the prince is to offer the sacrifices, but it is still the priests who accept them and do that voodoo that they do so well. In other words, it is his responsibility to bring the animal to the Temple on on feast days, sabbaths, etc. And finally, this verse isn’t referring to THE PRINCE but to the princes of Israel, and it is admonishing them, not praising them.

 

[ryanoneil]

Compair Deut 32:39 with John 5:21.

Read these scripture verses side by side. Jesus is claiming to be God and “For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.” (John 5:18)

Peace,

Ryan

 

[FaithofAbraham]

well, if you ever get the job as “President of defining Judaism” let me know and I’ll change my beliefs accordingly. And if you read that chapter, you know that it is referring to animal and grain sacrifices in the Temple, not taking our prayers to God for attonement. And that the prince is to offer the sacrifices, but it is still the priests who accept them and do that voodoo that they do so well. In other words, it is his responsibility to bring the animal to the Temple on on feast days, sabbaths, etc. And finally, this verse isn’t referring to THE PRINCE but to the princes of Israel, and it is admonishing them, not praising them.

Actually it is talking about David as I posted, one prince.

Ezekiel 45:16 All the people of the land shall give this offering for the prince in Israel.

And we already know that Messiah is a priest like Melchizedek.

Psalms 110:2 The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

Psalms 110:3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

Psalms 110:4 The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Sadly, Judaism has largely ignored this priestly aspect of Messiah who makes atonement for his people.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

Compair Deut 32:39 with John 5:21.

Read these scripture verses side by side. Jesus is claiming to be God and “For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.” (John 5:18)

Peace,

Ryan

However Jesus is given that power by God, he doesn’t just have it as God.

John 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

And again, Son of God is the Messiah expected by Jews:

2 Samuel 7:14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:

And Messiah does rule and speak as God like Moses did:

Exodus 4:16 And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou (MOSES) shalt be to him instead of God.

But Messiah was never expected to be God, just the human Son of David.

 

[Valke2]

Actually it is talking about David as I posted, one prince.

Ezekiel 45:16 All the people of the land shall give this offering for the prince in Israel.

What translation are you using? It is all the people of the land shall be bound to this offering.

 

[Hastrman]

However Jesus is given that power by God, he doesn’t just have it as God.

John 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

And again, Son of God is the Messiah expected by Jews:

2 Samuel 7:14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:

And Messiah does rule and speak as God like Moses did:

Exodus 4:16 And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou (MOSES) shalt be to him instead of God.

But Messiah was never expected to be God, just the human Son of David.

But a son is of the exact same nature as his Father, adoption makes no difference (anymore than it does in marriage when the Two become One Flesh–these are mystical ideas here). A son is, to his father, “Flesh of my Flesh, Bone of my Bone”. That’s why Jews don’t generally call God “father”: humility. Christians wouldn’t either, but we believe we’ve been specifically told to.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

But a son is of the exact same nature as his Father, adoption makes no difference (anymore than it does in marriage when the Two become One Flesh–these are mystical ideas here). A son is, to his father, “Flesh of my Flesh, Bone of my Bone”. That’s why Jews don’t generally call God “father”: humility. Christians wouldn’t either, but we believe we’ve been specifically told to.

Not sure what you mean, Israel is firstborn of God. Adam is called Son of God in Luke. Many can be Sons of God.

Romans 8:14-15 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

My point was that the title doesn’t imply deity, but adoption.

 

[FaithofAbraham]

What translation are you using? It is all the people of the land shall be bound to this offering.

Mechon-Mamre

טז כֹּל הָעָם הָאָרֶץ, יִהְיוּ אֶל-הַתְּרוּמָה הַזֹּאת, לַנָּשִׂיא, בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל. 16 All the people of the land shall give this offering for the prince in Israel.

 

[Hastrman]

My point was that the title doesn’t imply deity, but adoption.

And that was where you were wrong. That which is a son in some way partakes of the nature of its father–cat fathers have cat offspring. Adoption made a person a son just as much as birth did; you need to get away from a materialistic understanding of these things.