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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The fulfilment of Isaiah 7:14
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Out of the edit time, but further to my recent answer, if one insists that actually Mary's Dad was called Joachim, it needs to be said that the variant form is Eliacim which has as its abbreviation Eli, which is a variant of Heli.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
As I understand it, Matthew says that Joseph’s father was a chap called Jacob but Luke says it was someone called Heli.
People greater than me have studied this and they say that actually, Heli is Mary’s father and the family tree is Mary’s. And where it says that Joseph was the son of Heli it signifies that he was actually adopted by Mary’s Dad.
That sounds really contrived but the law at the time said that if a woman had no brothers, and it seems Mary didn’t - then Joseph her husband had to become the adopted son and heir of his father in law, because only a man could inherit.
Mary’s father Heli had no sons, so Mary’s husband became Heli's son.
The family tree is therefore of Mary, with Joseph included as the adopted son of Heli, Mary's natural father.
I have to say I find that, and always have found it, thoroughly unconvincing. It's a simpler explanation to suggest that Matthew, Luke, or both of them, were wrong. The birth narratives are a bit questionable historically anyway.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
As I understand it, Matthew says that Joseph’s father was a chap called Jacob but Luke says it was someone called Heli.
People greater than me have studied this and they say that actually, Heli is Mary’s father and the family tree is Mary’s. And where it says that Joseph was the son of Heli it signifies that he was actually adopted by Mary’s Dad.
That sounds really contrived but the law at the time said that if a woman had no brothers, and it seems Mary didn’t - then Joseph her husband had to become the adopted son and heir of his father in law, because only a man could inherit.
Mary’s father Heli had no sons, so Mary’s husband became Heli's son.
The family tree is therefore of Mary, with Joseph included as the adopted son of Heli, Mary's natural father.
I have to say I find that, and always have found it, thoroughly unconvincing. It's a simpler explanation to suggest that Matthew, Luke, or both of them, were wrong. The birth narratives are a bit questionable historically anyway.
When one takes the latter view, as you do, then really there is no point in discussing it.
I find absolutely no reason whatever to refuse to give credence to the historicity of the birth narratives - or the whole life, teaching, death ad resurrection, for that matter.
There are two reasons why the historicity of the Messiah's origins does matter:
1) It mattered to the Jews: they would have accepted no one who didn't fit. Yes, one could say that the genealogies were fabricated in order to prove his lineage, but tat's a very cynical view and collapses under the weight of all the other evidence.
and
2)It matters because the Christian faith is funded on the Incarnation. There HAS t be a 'flesh and blood God' with the correct credentials of humanity and divinity or else the entire edifice collapses under the rather flimsy weight of what's left: a rather brief summary of 1st Century Rabbinic teaching that we can glean from many of the Fathers contemporary to Jesus.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
But that's an appeal to consequences argument. The tail wagging the dog. But the real problem is that in an attempt to save scriptural infallibility, we have to say that Luke was saying something other than what he wrote. I appreciate the point about Joseph's being the heir of his father in law if Mary had no brothers (not that that's something we know) but Luke doesn't say that; it's pure supposition, and I doubt anyone would have come up with that interpretation without a prior commitment to harmony with Matthew's genealogy.
Moreover, it's stretching credulity to imagine that these genealogies were really kept through to Abraham. Luke's genealogy going back even further to Adam seems even more unlikely; we're well into the realm of mythology there. It's like English kings of the Heptarchy tracing themselves back to Woden.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
I understand what you say, but I would suggest that whilst we are not always clear about what the writers said or intended, that's merely because we only have translations and the lengthy passage of time and the disadvantage that we have forgotten the ancient cultural contexts.
It seems t me that the original writer and his readers would have understood it clearly.
The Jews were very hot on genealogy - the priests for example had to prove their descendance from Aaron.
As far as tracing one's line back to Adam, yes of course that a literary thing - Luke shows that Jesus fits in with OT Scriptural lineage, but the important thing is that Jesus fits in with David; which is a lot easier.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
It's all so, literally, pre-historic, un-historic, a-historic, non-historic, in a similarly {pre, un, a, non}-{rational, hermeneutic, epistemological} even pre-Ptolemaic culture that it cannot work in any probative way for those enculturated in the Copernican. Therefore, for the Copernican faithful it certainly doesn't matter if it's wrong, not just inexplicably, arbitrarily, unreasonably complex, or entirely fictitious. It matters desperately for the Ptolemaic and that's OK. God incarnated in Jesus regardless. We ALL believe that, by His Spirit. Despite otherwise irreconcilable enculturated differences.
The gift of faith in Christ comes first, the stories we make up to justify it to ourselves come after.
It's like being in a museum or an art gallery here, being able to see narrative artefacts, paintings, installations startlingly juxtaposed.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's all so, literally, pre-historic, un-historic, a-historic, non-historic, in a similarly {pre, un, a, non}-{rational, hermeneutic, epistemological} even pre-Ptolemaic culture that it cannot work in any probative way for those enculturated in the Copernican. Therefore, for the Copernican faithful it certainly doesn't matter if it's wrong, not just inexplicably, arbitrarily, unreasonably complex, or entirely fictitious. It matters desperately for the Ptolemaic and that's OK. God incarnated in Jesus regardless. We ALL believe that, by His Spirit. Despite otherwise irreconcilable enculturated differences.
The gift of faith in Christ comes first, the stories we make up to justify it to ourselves come after.
It's like being in a museum or an art gallery here, being able to see narrative artefacts, paintings, installations startlingly juxtaposed.
I only read English so forgive me should I have misunderstood you...
quote:
God incarnated in Jesus regardless
?
That might assume an adoption of a human child and his possession, rather than the Incarnation of God 'as' Jesus, rather than 'in' Jesus.
Faith in Christ can indeed come frst, before the facts of the historical Christ are fully appreciated, however, there can be no Christ without the historical Jesus. There can be no historical Jesus - nor would there need to be - if the human and divine credentials not fulfilled.
Christ is not a principle that doesn't need the incarnation. There can be no Messiah without the pre-requisite historical man descended from David.
Jesus can not be descended from David through Joseph, so I need to ask, through whom did Jesus get his Messiah-qualification from?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Martin, I couldn't understand you, and I still don't know what exactly you are saying to me. If this is any answer, I do in fact believe in the virgin birth of Christ, and I do not believe it caused his deity or is necessary to his deity. I think he chose to do it that way for reasons of his own, not because he had to.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's all so, literally, pre-historic, un-historic, a-historic, non-historic, in a similarly {pre, un, a, non}-{rational, hermeneutic, epistemological} even pre-Ptolemaic culture that it cannot work in any probative way for those enculturated in the Copernican. Therefore, for the Copernican faithful it certainly doesn't matter if it's wrong, not just inexplicably, arbitrarily, unreasonably complex, or entirely fictitious. It matters desperately for the Ptolemaic and that's OK. God incarnated in Jesus regardless. We ALL believe that, by His Spirit. Despite otherwise irreconcilable enculturated differences.
The gift of faith in Christ comes first, the stories we make up to justify it to ourselves come after.
It's like being in a museum or an art gallery here, being able to see narrative artefacts, paintings, installations startlingly juxtaposed.
I only read English so forgive me should I have misunderstood you...
quote:
God incarnated in Jesus regardless
?
That might assume an adoption of a human child and his possession, rather than the Incarnation of God 'as' Jesus, rather than 'in' Jesus.
Faith in Christ can indeed come frst, before the facts of the historical Christ are fully appreciated, however, there can be no Christ without the historical Jesus. There can be no historical Jesus - nor would there need to be - if the human and divine credentials not fulfilled.
Christ is not a principle that doesn't need the incarnation. There can be no Messiah without the pre-requisite historical man descended from David.
Jesus can not be descended from David through Joseph, so I need to ask, through whom did Jesus get his Messiah-qualification from?
I'm not interested Mudfrog, it doesn't concern me in the slightest. I'm not the demographic, i.e. a C1st Jew. And it's 'in' as much as 'as' if not more so. The new human ensouled rational minded person Jesus had a mystical, incomprehensible hypostasis of two natures. 'In' implies more that transfinite, pre-eternal God the Son of God overlaps, intersects by nature in the new person Jesus with human nature. Not as Him.
Jesus was not the full, sole expression of the Person God the Son who made and sustains all eternal infinite things.
If He were, then there is only one blip of a universe between eternities and only one sapient species in it.
As I'm not adoptionist there isn't a problem.
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Love wins
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Jesus was not the full, sole expression of the Person God the Son who made and sustains all eternal infinite things.
If He were, then there is only one blip of a universe between eternities and only one sapient species in it.
As I'm not adoptionist there isn't a problem.
Could you unpack that a little? He was not the sole expression of the person God the Son?
How does that square with being the image of the invisible God in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
They're just words Mudfrog. Something we made up. The One who thinks the universe at least, didn't invert Himself, become a pinhead of protoplasm in the universe and carry on thinking it whilst not being aware of anything. It's sublime, beautiful, heterodox, heretical nonsense if taken literally.
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Love wins
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Seriously, I am reading individual words but you don't make a lot of sense.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
That's the nature of the subject. It cannot be clarified without a meeting of minds.
What does being the image of the invisible God in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily mean to you?
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Love wins
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Martin, I couldn't understand you, and I still don't know what exactly you are saying to me. If this is any answer, I do in fact believe in the virgin birth of Christ, and I do not believe it caused his deity or is necessary to his deity. I think he chose to do it that way for reasons of his own, not because he had to.
I know you believe in the VB. I don't believe it caused His deity either. The hypostatic union of natures, one of which was divine, did that. The sign of that is the VB. On second thoughts I DO believe it caused, conceived His deity, His Godness, His divine nature on His Father's side as in the Son by the Spirit and therefore the unique hypostasis, hypostatic perichoresis of natures in a human mind, now transcendent. If He had been conceived in the usual way, His single nature would have been solely human.
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Love wins
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
I can't see the disconnect.
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Love wins
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Martin, I agree with you entirely on your last point. The Virgin birth did not create the deity of Christ, it was the way that he was able to be Incarnate - had Jesus had 2 human parents he would not have been the Son of God save by adoption.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
It's your last sentence:
quote:
If He had been conceived in the usual way, His single nature would have been solely human.
How does his conception have anything to do with his nature(s)? Given that we've already established Godhood is not transmitted sexually through heredity.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Now we're dividing bone and marrow.
Could a hypostasis of human and divine natures have been created in a normally conceived human?
Let's posit yes.
What would be the sign of that? What would be the story? What would Gabriel have said to Mary? I'm sure we can make one up that diverges minimally from the virgin birth.
What difference would it make to the story. Nothing and everything. Jesus would NOT be the Son of God and Man, He'd be the adopted Son of God.
That opens up a Pandora's box of if Jesus then why not all of us for me, for a start.
OK. So could an adopted Son of God claim to be Yahweh?
These are open questions. I shall mull.
If that which was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit was independent of the hypostatic union, i.e. 'just' a biological miracle, and the hypostatic union occurred anyway, then yeah.
Makes everything MUCH more complex mind. And it's, He's, the most complex ontological entity already.
BUT if that which was conceived in Mary was the hypostatic union, independent of the signifying biological miracle, then no.
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Love wins
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Can someone clear this up for me? Where in the OT does it say the Messiah has to be divine? That is not to say, of course, that he doesn't have to be God's anointed one. I would suggest that the Messiah of the Jewish tradition is definitely not divine. Isn't part of the problem that Christians have used the term "Messiah" in a way Jews coming from their religious tradition would not understand?
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Can someone clear this up for me? Where in the OT does it say the Messiah has to be divine? That is not to say, of course, that he doesn't have to be God's anointed one. I would suggest that the Messiah of the Jewish tradition is definitely not divine. Isn't part of the problem that Christians have used the term "Messiah" in a way Jews coming from their religious tradition would not understand?
Is 9:6? Unto us a child is born etc..and his name shall be called ...the mighty God, the everlasting father.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
I'm as surprised as you Jamat! That it can be asked!
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Love wins
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Well, guys, I don't think the passage is as straightforward as you seem to suggest, and it needs a lot of unpacking. The relationship between the "son" and the "Lord Almighty" is not clear. Furthermore, it is not obvious how Isaiah 9: 1-7 relates to Jesus. Jesus did not sit on the throne of his father, David, nor did he establish the everlasting Kingdom described in this prophecy.
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Interestingly, to play Devil's advocate, the Jews translate the passage thusly:
"5 For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom;"
In other words, it's just a name, not his identity. Just like any other name that is given to a man in the OT.
Being called Joshua, for example, doesn't make one the Saviour.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Goldfish Stew
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# 5512
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Can someone clear this up for me? Where in the OT does it say the Messiah has to be divine? That is not to say, of course, that he doesn't have to be God's anointed one. I would suggest that the Messiah of the Jewish tradition is definitely not divine. Isn't part of the problem that Christians have used the term "Messiah" in a way Jews coming from their religious tradition would not understand?
Is 9:6? Unto us a child is born etc..and his name shall be called ...the mighty God, the everlasting father.
There are alternative views in Judaism
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Martin, the choices are not between adoptionism and virgin birth-as-you-yourself-personally-visualize-it (because I'm not clear on what that is, except that it apparently has a causative effect on deity).
There is also the position I and others hold, which is that:
Yes, he was virgin born.
Yes, he got his human nature from his mother in the usual, heredity-derived way.
Yes, he is God (and not some half-god, either--fully God, the second Person of the Trinity). He has been God from everlasting. This state did not suddenly come into being at Bethlehem (or Nazareth, 9 months previously, or at any later point in his life such as his baptism). Christ Jesus has always been God.
From our human standpoint within time, he has not always been man. That is what the Incarnation is about. God took on human nature. That happened in time, and would date to his conception. There never was a time when Christ's human nature existed separately and alone, not joined to his divine nature. Do you see now why this is not adoptionism? It is the very converse of adoptionism, as the pre-existing Deity accepts a brand-new human nature (and not the other way around).
Now if you ask how the two natures were joined (hypostatic union), I cannot answer. Only God knows and could understand this. But we can be sure of this, that it was not either by sex (as the Mormons appear to believe) or by some semi-automatic process analogous to human reproduction which transmitted divinity in a manner similar to how genes and chromosomes transmit humanity down through the generations. God does not "reproduce" as mice or cats or people do. And therefore there is no reason on earth why the father's role in procreation must be left empty and open for him, for fear that the child will otherwise not be deity.
Seriously?
That is to limit God far too much.
If God had chosen to give Jesus a human father as well as a human mother, the only difference that would make to his nature is that he would derive humanity from both parents, just as we all do. God could still certainly "do his thing" and incarnate at the moment of that child's conception. The divine nature would be unaffected.
Please don't get me wrong. I believe very strongly in the virgin birth of Christ. I just don't see any required connection between that doctrine and the deity of Christ.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Well, guys, I don't think the passage is as straightforward as you seem to suggest, and it needs a lot of unpacking. The relationship between the "son" and the "Lord Almighty" is not clear. Furthermore, it is not obvious how Isaiah 9: 1-7 relates to Jesus. Jesus did not sit on the throne of his father, David, nor did he establish the everlasting Kingdom described in this prophecy.
He did on the cross: INRI. And He will or has in the resurrection: establish the everlasting Kingdom.
Mudfrog, I'm impressed at your Devil's advocacy.
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Love wins
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Well, guys, I don't think the passage is as straightforward as you seem to suggest, and it needs a lot of unpacking. The relationship between the "son" and the "Lord Almighty" is not clear. Furthermore, it is not obvious how Isaiah 9: 1-7 relates to Jesus. Jesus did not sit on the throne of his father, David, nor did he establish the everlasting Kingdom described in this prophecy.
He did on the cross: INRI. And He will or has in the resurrection: establish the everlasting Kingdom.
Mudfrog, I'm impressed at your Devil's advocacy.
You're kind.
The point is, of course, that prophecy has a two fold application.
Isaiah was referring to Hezekiah but there is the longterm fulfilment as well.
I have no problem with the titles in Isaiah merely being a name - or two names - but the meaning of those names does apply to Jesus in the fulfilment.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
@Lamb Chopped. I think our fly pasts are converging.
To the point of divergence.
Jesus cannot be congruent, map 1:1 with the Second Person of the Trinity UNLESS we are the only sapient species for all time, from eternity, for eternity, to eternity.
And we're not. That's utter nonsense. It doesn't matter how 'heterodox', 'heretical' it is. Wossisname, the German Roman Catholic convert with two brains at Birmingham University realised this. IngoB. RIP.
God is BIGGER than our stories. Infinitely. More.
I like your argument that the Second Person of God assumed human nature. But that's NOT Chalcedonian. And it just doesn't work. The NATURE of the Second Person of God overlapped with the nature of a human, as the hypostasis in the new person of a human. That's Chalcedon.
Happy to be wrong. Show me. In Chalcedon. I mean really happy to be really stupidly, ignorantly, pathetically not even wrong, wrong.
We just don't know what we're talking about when we talk about nature. We never will.
Regardless, Jesus was not, can not have been, the sum total of, all of, the Second Person of the Godhead. In/sensately collapsed from trans-infinity in to an ovum.
God cannot undo Himself. Cannot un-be. He cannot die. Cannot sleep. Cannot be un-omniscient of the knowable. The Muslims understand this. He can PARTAKE. They don't understand that. And neither do you. And you're smarter than me for sure. Who isn't here? I bare my throat, have at me. I am DIM. But I am dogged.
I'm being creedal and heretical here. Because the creed is heresy. All theology is heresy. In the face of the raw fact, utter certainty above all, of eternity. Of eternal creation. An eternity of worlds. Of sapient beings. It is insanely head spinningly true. There is no alternative. In God or no.
You do not believe that humanity is unique in the universe and that the universe is unique. Therefore the Incarnation isn't. The now transcendent man Jesus is one of a growing infinity clothing God the Son. This is the ultimate pit in which to stare.
As Eutychus reminded me weeks back, C. S. Lewis was there 75 years ago.
There is no escape from this.
So we must turn away from the ... lethality of the face of God. This is mind killing stuff.
And we must continue to play in the sandpit where I say what was conceived was the hypostatic union, the first and best and simplest and most elegant and convincing sign of which is the virgin birth.
Not Spongiform theolopathic adoption.
Can you stare in to the pit? Nietzsche saw nowt.
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Love wins
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Goldfish Stew:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Can someone clear this up for me? Where in the OT does it say the Messiah has to be divine? That is not to say, of course, that he doesn't have to be God's anointed one. I would suggest that the Messiah of the Jewish tradition is definitely not divine. Isn't part of the problem that Christians have used the term "Messiah" in a way Jews coming from their religious tradition would not understand?
Is 9:6? Unto us a child is born etc..and his name shall be called ...the mighty God, the everlasting father.
There are alternative views in Judaism
Does this come down to an argument from silence? The NT did not quote this passage? There are earlier Rabbis without the anti Christian baggage but certainly an impressive amount of ink spilt. I am not convinced about this being a prophecy about a sign-child for the benefit of Ahaz as the terms of it are in cosmic dimensions.
@Kwesi: Jesus did not reign as king in his first coming but I think scripture tells us that in his second coming he will set up a kingdom.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
WTF? Martin, of course Christ Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, and of course he "maps" if you must use the term in a one-to-one manner. Why in creation would it make any difference whether there were aliens or not, and whether he became incarnate for them as well (or did something unique and even more unimaginable)?
He is himself. Wherever he goes, whatever he does. And he needn't answer to me about it, either.
[ 19. November 2016, 01:28: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Does this come down to an argument from silence? The NT did not quote this passage? There are earlier Rabbis without the anti Christian baggage but certainly an impressive amount of ink spilt. I am not convinced about this being a prophecy about a sign-child for the benefit of Ahaz as the terms of it are in cosmic dimensions.
It is just one of a variety of alternative explanations a quick google revealed.
I have no skin in this particular game, except to note that "prophecies" that only make sense in hindsight are up there with cold reading psychics and horoscopes in their utility. There appears to be no particular pre-christ notion that this was messianic prophecy pointing to divine messiah. And according to the analysis in the article I linked, even the predictive tense has been inserted post christ.
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
And I should add, if that passage is actually messianic and means the christ is divine, the inclusion of everlasting father as one of the names should - by the same interpretive conventions - undo orthodox trinity doctrine as the same passage calling the messiah God calls him father. Oops
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
I must admit to being intrigued by the conversation on the Road to Emmaus, where Jesus’ companions professed their disappointment that he did not fulfil the Messianic prophecies. In that they were expressing Jewish mainstream understandings of what the Messiah was expected to do. They were not ignorant. Jesus then embarked on a novel explanation by suggesting that a humiliating/God-cursed death of the Messiah was predicted in scripture by conflating Messiahship with the Suffering Servant. This appears to have become the case for Jesus that was put to the Jews subsequently. The vast majority of Jews, however, remained unconvinced. Indeed, they regarded it as blasphemy. The strength of this new argument rested not on scripture but the experience of the resurrection which exposed the weakness of Jewish orthodoxy and demanded a new interpretation if the concept of Messiah was to be saved. It is instructive to note that Paul’s theology rested not on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah but as the culturally transcendent Second Adam.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
nd I should add, if that passage is actually messianic and means the christ is divine, the inclusion of everlasting father as one of the names should - by the same interpretive conventions - undo orthodox trinity doctrine as the same passage calling the messiah God calls him father. Oops
Not sure why you think so. I' d have thought it supported the notion of the trinity. Viz the father dwells in the son as Jesus claimed " If you have seen me Phillip, you have seen the father." John 14-15.
Kwesi: Paul clearly conflates the two ideas, messiah and second Adam. One is also the other.
The Emmaus Rd story indeed clarifies that Jesus claims to be the fulfilment of the suffering messiah. If we acknowledge that claim then that settles the matter. He states there that the ot scriptures refer to him.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
WTF? Martin, of course Christ Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, and of course he "maps" if you must use the term in a one-to-one manner. Why in creation would it make any difference whether there were aliens or not, and whether he became incarnate for them as well (or did something unique and even more unimaginable)?
He is himself. Wherever he goes, whatever he does. And he needn't answer to me about it, either.
It means, Lamb Chopped, that while He was being Jesus here, he was being Jesus concurrently elsewhere. Infinitely. Stare at that. Unless there is only one eternal string of universe beads, with one sapient species per universe, in which case He does it serially dependent on how frequently the beads are strung. Keep staring Lamb Chopped.
If you are right and God The Son = Jesus, ecce homo, and only Jesus, once, 4 BC - 31 AD, then the greatest single fact that there is, of happened past eternity and un-happened future eternity, is meaningless. It means our Jesus is the pivot of all eternity and infinity. If that is so, on the basis of a story we made up, then sense does not apply at all.
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Love wins
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Martin, you are getting boggled by a thing that need not boggle you at all. Of course our Jesus is the center of everything. If there are aliens (other than angels, I mean) they could just as truly say "of course our Ygprwqs!vbh is the center of everything," or whatever name they call him by. It is the same Lord, the same Savior. What he gets up to in other alien worlds is entirely his own affair, though I'll be interested to hear the tales. But it does nothing to negate or privilege what he does in any given world. Why should it bother me if he is being his usual saving self off on the planet Archeopteryx?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Our Jesus, 4 BC - 31 AD, wasn't their Jesus. That's the point. Our Jesus was local and didn't exist prior to being so.
Unless a nature is not just a nature.
I'll overlook the patronization just this once! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Love wins
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Lamb Chopped quote:
It is the same Lord, the same Savior. What he gets up to in other alien worlds is entirely his own affair,
I think what Martin60 is arguing is that the Jewish Messiah and the Christian Messiah are two different concepts. If that is the case then it's difficult to see how future prophecies concerning the Jewish Messiah can be about the Christian Messiah. That, indeed, is why the Jews were unable to accept that Jesus was their Messiah, as Paul recognised, the cross was [and remains] a stumbling block to them because, inter alia, it proved he was cursed by God. Isaiah's Messiah is not Isaiah's Suffering Servant. If that is what Martin60 is saying then I agree with him. Judaism and Christianity exist in different worlds when they confusingly use the same word, Messiah, to mean different things.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Our Jesus, 4 BC - 31 AD, wasn't their Jesus. That's the point. Our Jesus was local and didn't exist prior to being so.
So now Jesus is not pre existent?
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Our Jesus, 4 BC - 31 AD, wasn't their Jesus. That's the point. Our Jesus was local and didn't exist prior to being so.
So now Jesus is not pre existent?
No, 'Jesus' the man was conceived and born in 4 BC - or whenever.
Before that date there was no Jesus, no human Incarnation.
There was however, the Word, the second person of the Trinity.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I must admit to being intrigued by the conversation on the Road to Emmaus, where Jesus’ companions professed their disappointment that he did not fulfil the Messianic prophecies. In that they were expressing Jewish mainstream understandings of what the Messiah was expected to do. They were not ignorant. Jesus then embarked on a novel explanation by suggesting that a humiliating/God-cursed death of the Messiah was predicted in scripture by conflating Messiahship with the Suffering Servant. This appears to have become the case for Jesus that was put to the Jews subsequently. The vast majority of Jews, however, remained unconvinced. Indeed, they regarded it as blasphemy. The strength of this new argument rested not on scripture but the experience of the resurrection which exposed the weakness of Jewish orthodoxy and demanded a new interpretation if the concept of Messiah was to be saved. It is instructive to note that Paul’s theology rested not on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah but as the culturally transcendent Second Adam.
That's not a bad theory, but it's reading a lot more into the account than what the narrative says. Luke 24 doesn't say they were disturbed because Jesus didn't fulfill the OT prophesies, it says:
quote:
Luke 24:17-wr He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
“What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.
LThe chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.
Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”
I read their disturbance to be not about how Jesus doesn't fulfill prophesy, but rather the more obvious disturbance about all the disturbing things that had just taken place-- i.e. Jesus' death and all the chaos and confusion taking place on the 3rd day. They aren't disappointed that he didn't fulfill prophesy, they are disappointed that the one they thought might be the fulfillment of prophesy was dead.
Jesus is the one who brings in prophesy:
quote:
Luke 24:25-26 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”
I think you are correct that you do see different strands in the NT, some emphasizing Jesus as the fulfillment of OT prophesy, others speaking as you suggest in a more trans-cultural manner, but that seems to me to have more to do with who the intended audience might be-- similar to the different metaphors for the atonement.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Our Jesus, 4 BC - 31 AD, wasn't their Jesus. That's the point. Our Jesus was local and didn't exist prior to being so.
So now Jesus is not pre existent?
No, 'Jesus' the man was conceived and born in 4 BC - or whenever.
Before that date there was no Jesus, no human Incarnation.
There was however, the Word, the second person of the Trinity.
So the eternal word is not "Jesus" until he became incarnate?
That never occurred to me before but is it not semantics.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Lamb Chopped quote:
It is the same Lord, the same Savior. What he gets up to in other alien worlds is entirely his own affair,
..they confusingly use the same word, Messiah, to mean different things.
To believe that is to ignore the Jewish roots of the church. There is no saviour who Is not also Jewish Messiah. If the Jews didn't get it in his first coming, they will at his second.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
And I should add, if that passage is actually messianic and means the christ is divine, the inclusion of everlasting father as one of the names should - by the same interpretive conventions - undo orthodox trinity doctrine as the same passage calling the messiah God calls him father. Oops
Not sure why you think so. I' d have thought it supported the notion of the trinity. Viz the father dwells in the son as Jesus claimed " If you have seen me Phillip, you have seen the father." John 14-15.
I may be a bit rusty on the mental gymnastics that is the trinity, but in orthodox trinitarian doctrine the person of the son is distinct from the person of the father, albeit they are the same essence. "see me, see my dad" fits within the same essence idea. "He shall be called ... the Everlasting Father" as a literal statement confuses the two persons and lends itself far more to unitarianism than trinitarianism.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Lamb Chopped quote:
It is the same Lord, the same Savior. What he gets up to in other alien worlds is entirely his own affair,
I think what Martin60 is arguing is that the Jewish Messiah and the Christian Messiah are two different concepts. If that is the case then it's difficult to see how future prophecies concerning the Jewish Messiah can be about the Christian Messiah. That, indeed, is why the Jews were unable to accept that Jesus was their Messiah, as Paul recognised, the cross was [and remains] a stumbling block to them because, inter alia, it proved he was cursed by God. Isaiah's Messiah is not Isaiah's Suffering Servant. If that is what Martin60 is saying then I agree with him. Judaism and Christianity exist in different worlds when they confusingly use the same word, Messiah, to mean different things.
No 'e ain't! Arguing that. But he agrees. It's interesting that Jews reject Jesus as Messiah for, amongst other things, allowing Himself to be crucified, refusing to fulfil their earthly expectations and the Muslims reject that aspect of His story too. Their salvation is assured nonetheless of course, as Paul desperately strove for.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Our Jesus, 4 BC - 31 AD, wasn't their Jesus. That's the point. Our Jesus was local and didn't exist prior to being so.
So now Jesus is not pre existent?
No, 'Jesus' the man was conceived and born in 4 BC - or whenever.
Before that date there was no Jesus, no human Incarnation.
There was however, the Word, the second person of the Trinity.
So the eternal word is not "Jesus" until he became incarnate?
That never occurred to me before but is it not semantics.
How intriguing, to say the least (Alleluia!), that despite our irreconcilable hermeneutics on virtually everything else in the Bible, we, you Jamat, Mudfrog and I are converging on the ontological implications of Jesus.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
cliffdweller, perfectly parsimonious.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Goldfish Stew:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
And I should add, if that passage is actually messianic and means the christ is divine, the inclusion of everlasting father as one of the names should - by the same interpretive conventions - undo orthodox trinity doctrine as the same passage calling the messiah God calls him father. Oops
Not sure why you think so. I' d have thought it supported the notion of the trinity. Viz the father dwells in the son as Jesus claimed " If you have seen me Phillip, you have seen the father." John 14-15.
I may be a bit rusty on the mental gymnastics that is the trinity, but in orthodox trinitarian doctrine the person of the son is distinct from the person of the father, albeit they are the same essence. "see me, see my dad" fits within the same essence idea. "He shall be called ... the Everlasting Father" as a literal statement confuses the two persons and lends itself far more to unitarianism than trinitarianism.
It lends itself to neither now. To the Jews who said it then, it reflected their obvious Unitarian monotheism. It would take over a thousand years for Trinitarian monotheism to be adduced. The Everlasting Father of the Jews is not God the Father who was only revealed by and in Christ. And why wouldn't the Jews project fatherhood on to their Messiah?
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Love wins
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