Thread: The fulfilment of Isaiah 7:14 Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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The story so far from Purgatory:
Jamat:
My view of Scriptural texts sees prophecy as God reaching into time. Objectivity is ensured by his predictions that are measurable against history.
one eg is the incarnation. Isaiah said a virgin would conceive and 600 or so years later a virgin did.
Martin:
Objectively, truthfully, there is no mention of a virgin giving birth in Isaiah of course.
Especially 600 or so years later.
Jamat:
Perhaps you forgot Isaiah 7:14
"A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel."
Martin:
I didn't realise that Isaiah was Anglic! Wow, over two thousand years before Early Modern English existed.
If he'd have been Hebraic, he'd have used the word 'betulah' for virgin wouldn't he?
Isaiah 7 describes a prophecy for King Ahaz in 753 BC. The writer of The Gospel of Matthew took the liberty of arrogating that for the purposes of validating the Incarnation myth, using standards that no modern person possibly could, that are not acceptable in any modern discourse for the past 400 years. Even pre-modern, pre-scientific, pre-Enlightenment thinkers like Aquinas couldn't use such utterly outmoded 'reasoning'.
The past is another country. They do things differently there. It's IMPOSSIBLE even to visit.
The use of methods we have all long since evolved beyond in the educated West in all other discourses, to justify present abuse, is completely irrational, utterly invalid, as bizarre as witchcraft.
Jamat:
To the Jew the sign of a supernatural birth goes back to that of Isaac. To a human, it goes to Genesis 3.
Regarding Is 7:14 It was not about the king at all. Two births are mentioned in the passage, one was, one was not.
The word used here is 'Almah', a word used for young woman but also used in Song of Solomon (1:3, 6:8) for Virgin. It is a normal usage for 'virgin'. Some Rabbi's contest it, notably Rashi but his motive is to discredit Jesus and his messianic claims. He also mutilates Is 53.
All the Rabbis who created the Septuagint (250 of them) translated 'Almah' as 'parthenos' Greek for virgin.. The word is rightly translated as a virginal young woman. Remember, this Is 7:14 event was a sign..like Isaac it was a supernatural sign. These Rabbis lived about 1300 years closer to the time of Isaiah than Rashi did.
Refer also to Gen 3:15. Jesus(the Messiah) was the seed of a woman ie implying he would not have a father.
Jesus entered the earth via a virgin birth. This is a foundational truth, a fact not a myth. You point out yourself that the apostles concur with the translation of virgin in the New Testament, particularly Matthew. Perhaps your dismissiveness is a trifle displaced. Can you not learn from the way THEY interpret? THEIR hermeneutic?
Martin the arrogance of your claims is frightening; you are saying that the historical writers are all superseded by modern insights? I'm speechless! Shakespeare? .
Martin: The ignorance in that post is frightening and completely germane to the unreasoning throughout, there is nothing tangential about that.
The prophecy to Ahaz was completely fulfilled from the next chapter.
Alan Cresswell:
The particular example of the fulfillment of prophesy of the young woman/virgin giving birth is, of course, irrelevant to the establishment of the modern nation of Israel.
Martin:
And Jamat, Jews aren't human then?
And Jamat, where in the chapter is there another baby?
I can only find this reference which is obviously to one:
Isaiah7:14 All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign—a child shall be born to a virgin![c] And she shall call him Immanuel (meaning, “God is with us”). 15-16 By the time this child is weaned[d] and knows right from wrong, the two kings you fear so much—the kings of Israel and Syria—will both be dead.
c. Isaiah 7:14 a child shall be born to a virgin. The controversial Hebrew word used here sometimes means “virgin” and sometimes “young woman.” Its immediate use here refers to Isaiah’s young wife and her newborn son (8:1-4).
This, of course, was not a virgin birth.
God’s sign was that before this child was old enough to talk (v. 4), the two invading kings would be destroyed.
d. Isaiah 7:15 By the time this child is weaned, literally, “For before this child shall know [is old enough] to refuse evil and to choose the good . . . and [is old enough to] eat curds and honey.” the kings of Israel and Syria, implied. will both be dead, or “the lands will be deserted [of their kings].”
Bible Gateway commentary.
I can't find a translation anywhere, including directly from the Hebrew, that talks of two?
What one are you using please? Can you quote from it if you can't say?
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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Here's the English of Isaiah 7.13-16 quote:
Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
and the Hebrew quote:
וַיֹּ֕אמֶר שִׁמְעוּ־נָ֖א בֵּ֣ית דָּוִ֑ד הַמְעַ֤ט מִכֶּם֙ הַלְא֣וֹת אֲנָשִׁ֔ים כִּ֥י תַלְא֖וּ גַּ֥ם אֶת־אֱלֹהָֽי׃ לָ֠כֵן יִתֵּ֨ן אֲדֹנָ֥י ה֛וּא לָכֶ֖ם א֑וֹת הִנֵּ֣ה הָעַלְמָ֗ה הָרָה֙ וְיֹלֶ֣דֶת בֵּ֔ן וְקָרָ֥את שְׁמ֖וֹ עִמָּ֥נוּ אֵֽל׃ חֶמְאָ֥ה וּדְבַ֖שׁ יֹאכֵ֑ל לְדַעְתּ֛וֹ מָא֥וֹס בָּרָ֖ע וּבָח֥וֹר בַּטּֽוֹב׃
and here's the passage in the Septuagint translation that was probably known to Matthew quote:
καὶ εἶπεν ᾿Ακούσατε δή, οἶκος Δαυιδ· μὴ μικρὸν ὑμῖν ἀγῶνα παρέχειν ἀνθρώποις; καὶ πῶς κυρίῳ παρέχετε ἀγῶνα; διὰ τοῦτο δώσει κύριος αὐτὸς ὑμῖν σημεῖον· ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Εμμανουηλ· βούτυρον καὶ μέλι φάγεται· πρὶν ἢ γνῶναι αὐτὸν ἢ προελέσθαι πονηρὰ ἐκλέξεται τὸ ἀγαθόν·
The decision that the Hebrew almah should be represented by the Greek parthenos was not as such a polemical Christian decision, but a prior Jewish translational choice. The Hebrew word neither precludes nor mandates parthenos as an appropriate translation.
In its original context in Isaiah it is a promise that a specific young woman is already expecting a child whom she will name Immanuel, and that by the time that child is old enough "to refuse the evil and choose the good" Ahaz and Judah will be delivered from what threatens them and experience a time of plenty.
Matthew coopts it to refer to Jesus. IMO, Matthew having a story of the virgin birth of Jesus finds a Hebrew scripture which he sees as in some way fulfilled by that event. Others would argue that the virgin birth story flows from the Isaiah 7.14 scripture. Personally I doubt that since the scripture is not messianic in any sense, so there is no point in making up a story of Jesus' birth to somehow fulfil that scripture.
My own feeling is that Matthew is not so interested in a chapter and verse fulfilment of Hebrew scriptures by the life and ministry of Jesus, as in a more general sense that Jesus is the one to whom the Hebrew scriptures look forward and in whom they find their fulfilment.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Magisterial BroJames.
The classical Jewish and Greek writers of the New Testament and their Subject used exegesis that is impossible today. He was still right of course.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I agree with BroJames.
But wonder if he is right in saying
"My own feeling is that Matthew is not so interested in a chapter and verse fulfilment of Hebrew scriptures by the life and ministry of Jesus, as in a more general sense that Jesus is the one to whom the Hebrew scriptures look forward and in whom they find their fulfilment."
Maybe Matthew was not much bothered by the 'fulfolment' need. ( and therefore prophetic anticipation) But his Jewish audience were. Hence Matthew's frequent recourse to "this was in fulfilment of the scripture" - a refrain which he resorts to 14 times in a couple of chapters. Including a reference not in OT " he shall be called a Nazarene"
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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I agree with Shamwari. IMO it is neither here nor there that Jesus was born of a virgin or not. Have I missed a point?
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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I agree that Matthew feels a strong need to show Jesus as the fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures. It's just that he did not see fulfilment in quite the literal way that modern readers do. Thus,for example, he can find fulfilment of a text (Hosea 11.1-4) that was not even something we would regard as a prophecy.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Exactly, 'Matthew' and all his peers including Jesus used the hermeneutics of classical times. They are now two thousand years exponentially obsolete. Hermeneutics and biology were base metal at a time when mathematics, astronomy, philosophy were gold, silver and bronze.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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Kwesi--
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I agree with Shamwari. IMO it is neither here nor there that Jesus was born of a virgin or not. Have I missed a point?
AIUI, it's to show that Jesus' father wasn't human--i.e., if he didn't have a biological father that was human, then his father had to be God. Therefore, he was/is both God and human.
They knew how babies were made, and that didn't normally involve a pregnant virgin.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I don't know whether it's true or not, but I don't have a problem with it.
IIRC, the Koran has Jesus fathered by a jinni/genie. So something beyond human. Islam (because of previous polytheism, I think) is iron-clad about God being One, so God can't be Jesus' father.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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I doubt the virgin birth doctrine has anything to do with Christ being God. Nobody I'm aware of in mainstream Christianity thinks that Godhood is transmitted genetically/hereditarily, as blue eyes or pointy ears might be.
I think the function of the doctrine is to point out "hey, God is doing something new here, pay attention!" a la Isaiah 43, and also to emphasize both Jesus' continuity with the rest of humanity (via Mary) and his discontinuity (via the act-of-new-creation that made a fatherless birth possible).
A child born from these circumstances cannot be classified as non-human (and therefore unable to share in the burdens of humanity, or able to redeem them as an interested individual). Nor can he be classed as just an ordinary person. The doctrine forces us to look more closely.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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On the doctrinal level is it not significant that the virgin birth is not mentioned by two of the gospel writers, nor does it feature in Acts or the Epistles? In other words, true or not, it does not appear to be an important doctrine if a doctrine at all. Incidentally, one notes that none so far has raised the question of Original Sin!
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Everybody knew. The virgin birth of Jesus.
[ 03. November 2016, 20:42: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
On the doctrinal level is it not significant that the virgin birth is not mentioned by two of the gospel writers, nor does it feature in Acts or the Epistles? In other words, true or not, it does not appear to be an important doctrine if a doctrine at all. Incidentally, one notes that none so far has raised the question of Original Sin!
I find it odd to say it doesn't exist in Acts, when Acts is the other half of Luke. It deals with events much later than Christ's birth. Why would one even expect it to go back in time, in terms of its own internal timeline, to take in something not directly relevant to the events it is portraying?
Applying the argument from silence to the epistles makes little more sense. They are not about the biography of Christ. They deal mostly with soteriology and church polity and praxis. Not things that are directly touched on by the Virgin birth. The deity of Christ is not fully realized yet, or if they were aware of it, it is written in code. They certainly wouldn't be trotting out the v.b. in evidence. If Paul even knew about it.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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So I went looking for different theological opinions on the virgin birth. Still wading through those! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Interestingly, I found some scientific ones.
(NOTE: Possibly NSFW, if your employer has a Net Nanny that looks for "sex", etc.)
-- "A Scientific Miracle: Theories of Mary's Virgin Birth." (Popular Science)
-- "Are There Really Virgin Births?" (mental_floss)
-- " Virgin conception would be more plausible if Mary was a man: Could testicular feminisation offer an explanation for the mystery of Jesus Christ's virgin birth?" (The Guardian)
I don't know what happened. But, IIRC, CS Lewis said (maybe in "God In The Dock"?) that since there are creatures capable of parthenogenesis (virgin birth), maybe God sort of went to an old part of the rule book. (Paraphrase.)
FWIW, YMMV.
Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on
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The virginal birth thing doesn't have its roots in Isaiah 7:14, or any other part of the OT. A has been noted, the gist of alma is a young woman, the passage refers to the eschatological mission of Jesus, and there is nothing else in pre-Jesus OT Judaism which points to an expected virgin birth.
Parallel pagan tales are very different in feel and content, and making Jesus look like a pagan demi-god was not what the Early Church was all about.
In Matthew and Luke, we have two clearly independent and different sources, implying (a) multiple sources of number and form and (b) that the tradition pre-dates their composition, rather than being a late C1 composition.
Setting aside the 'miracle' thing, there's no easy historical alternative to the origin of the story other than that's what happened.
Finally, I don't see why anyone who believes God made the universe(s) should have a problem with Him fixing a virgin birth. He could do it simultaneously while checking His Facebook page and cooking a fry-up.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Mousethief quote:
I find it odd to say it doesn't exist in Acts, when Acts is the other half of Luke. It deals with events much later than Christ's birth. Why would one even expect it to go back in time, in terms of its own internal timeline, to take in something not directly relevant to the events it is portraying? Applying the argument from silence to the epistles makes little more sense. They are not about the biography of Christ. They deal mostly with soteriology and church polity and praxis. Not things that are directly touched on by the Virgin birth.
Sara G quote:
I don't see why anyone who believes God made the universe(s) should have a problem with Him fixing a virgin birth. He could do it simultaneously while checking His Facebook page and cooking a fry-up.
Fair points, but I think they help to make my point: namely, that the absence of references to the virgin birth, apart from early Matthew and Luke, suggests that it was not important for the development arguments regarding the provenance of Christ and his work of salvation. It is, however, important for those who link the notion of original sin to the biology of reproduction, but that argument has not been advanced here. Thus, while I would agree that God is capable of engineering a virgin birth and that could have been the case respecting the conception of Jesus, I don’t see why he would have chosen so to do.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Thus, while I would agree that God is capable of engineering a virgin birth and that could have been the case respecting the conception of Jesus, I don’t see why he would have chosen so to do.
I don't see why God chooses to do many of the things that he does.
Moo
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Spot on Sarah G.
It happened, everybody knew, the synoptic writers were looking to explain what had happened from their now invalid hermeneutic.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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Agree that the NT authors and Matthew in particular do not "follow the rules" of hermeneutics as we understand them today, especially re OT prophecy. I think the "rules" are important, and useful, but I also think the fact that the NT authors don't follow them is also interesting. Among other things, I think it suggests interesting things about the way Christians read the OT in distinctly different ways that Jewish readers. Not wrong or better, just distinctly different, as per our own unique pov. Nothing wrong with that, but important to acknowledge it rather than pretending we're not.
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I doubt the virgin birth doctrine has anything to do with Christ being God. Nobody I'm aware of in mainstream Christianity thinks that Godhood is transmitted genetically/hereditarily, as blue eyes or pointy ears might be.
I think the function of the doctrine is to point out "hey, God is doing something new here, pay attention!" a la Isaiah 43, and also to emphasize both Jesus' continuity with the rest of humanity (via Mary) and his discontinuity (via the act-of-new-creation that made a fatherless birth possible).
A child born from these circumstances cannot be classified as non-human (and therefore unable to share in the burdens of humanity, or able to redeem them as an interested individual). Nor can he be classed as just an ordinary person. The doctrine forces us to look more closely.
Beautiful. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Both wrong, but apart from that
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Moo quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Thus, while I would agree that God is capable of engineering a virgin birth and that could have been the case respecting the conception of Jesus, I don’t see why he would have chosen so to do.
Moo: I don't see why God chooses to do many of the things that he does.
In such cases, therefore, there is nothing much one can say about them, Moo. Like the virgin birth they are of little interest or reasonable consequence for our understanding of God and his purposes. That does not preclude them of being hugely important beyond our finite minuscule comprehension. Unfortunate, but there it is.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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Does nobody accept that the Virgin Birth is meant as a theological statement rather than a biological statement?
The theology is that our salvation begins and ends with God. God takes the initiative in our salvation.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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I'd agree that it's significance is primarily theological rather than biological. I see 'rather than' as a false dichotomy though.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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There'd be no theological without the biological.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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shamwari--
Both theological and biological, I think. It was an event where God joined with a particular human (however that happened) and produced a baby (however that happened) who was also God.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Does nobody accept that the Virgin Birth is meant as a theological statement rather than a biological statement?
The theology is that our salvation begins and ends with God. God takes the initiative in our salvation.
If we are speaking of the Biblical writers, I think it is fair that they would be puzzled by a distinction between the theological and the biological.
It's the problem with Dom Crossan who once argued that the ancients took everything symbolically and we moderns are foolish enough to take it literally. That perspective is a gross oversimplification of the pre-Enlightenment mindset. The ancient view was that the symbolic was real, they believed for example that Christ had a virgin birth, because reality was always imbued with meaning and purpose. It is the Enlightenment that disenchanted reality, that basically suggested that natural processes had no theological purpose.
To put it differently, in the story of Jacob begetting children through Leah and Rachel, the writer mentions that God "opened their wombs." Natural, "normal" human conception is still seen as an act of the divine will, the ancients did not believe that normal human conception was "natural" and the virgin birth was "supernatural". God who acted through the normal processes of biology, could indeed act differently if God so chose.
I don't have a huge issue with Christians who have intellectual doubts about the virgin birth and can only see it as allegorical or spiritual. I do however take issue with projecting a modernist theology of symbol, back to the ancient authors.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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For reference, this is the quote I was referring to, by John Crossan:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2014/06/john-dominic-crossan-on-literalism.html
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Superb Anglican_Brat. Your post. If only Jamat would join in.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Anglican-Brat quote:
I don't have a huge issue with Christians who have intellectual doubts about the virgin birth and can only see it as allegorical or spiritual. I do however take issue with projecting a modernist theology of symbol, back to the ancient authors.
I don't think your point is in any way controversial. In this case, of course, there is the difficulty of deciding what Isaiah 7:14 means in terms of what the writer intended, and whether or not Matthew was "projecting a modernist theology" of his own! .
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Excellent Kwesi! I see no difficulty. That's exactly what he did.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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As a point of historical interest, many of these objections are not new discoveries of modern scholarship; Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, dated from the second century AD, endeavours to address the objections that almah doesn't mean 'virgin' and that the virgin birth was taken from pagan myths.
Text here; the objection relating to the translation is first raised in chapter XLIII, although Justin doesn't get round to answering it until much further down the page.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Superb Ricardus. If there was such scholarship in the C2nd there will have been in the C1st, even though he critiques the red herring of Hezekiah, when it's obviously all about Isaiah's second son. How did he miss that? How did I?! We're so easily deceived by the false hermeneutic of Matthew!
Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Thus, while I would agree that God is capable of engineering a virgin birth and that could have been the case respecting the conception of Jesus, I don’t see why he would have chosen so to do.
A good argument for the conclusion that the Early Church didn't invent the virgin birth. They would have agreed with your point, and the Gospel would have proceeded perfectly well without it.
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Agree that the NT authors and Matthew in particular do not "follow the rules" of hermeneutics as we understand them today, especially re OT prophecy. I think the "rules" are important, and useful, but I also think the fact that the NT authors don't follow them is also interesting. Among other things, I think it suggests interesting things about the way Christians read the OT in distinctly different ways that Jewish readers. Not wrong or better, just distinctly different, as per our own unique pov. Nothing wrong with that, but important to acknowledge it rather than pretending we're not.
Care is needed here. One of the things Paul put a lot of energy into doing was showing how the whole Jesus-story fits into the OT. He's reading the OT in exactly the same way as any C1 Jew in that respect- the hermeneutic is identical.
The difference comes, in that he believed that the OT promises had been implemented in full, and more; whereas his C1 Jewish compatriots mostly denied that.
There also needs to be care about understanding what how NT authors use texts. For example, a short quote often refers to a much longer passage- and looking up the context of a quote should be standard procedure.
One difference is that many modern Xians tend to use OT-prophecy-coming-true as an apologetics proof of 'Jesus', whereas the NT writers and the Early Church were seeing how events they had experienced had been described in the OT texts (event to text rather than text to event).
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Bugger, Sarah G, you've beaten me to it with precision and elegance that I will not touch. Still:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Agree that the NT authors and Matthew in particular do not "follow the rules" of hermeneutics as we understand them today, especially re OT prophecy. I think the "rules" are important, and useful, but I also think the fact that the NT authors don't follow them is also interesting. Among other things, I think it suggests interesting things about the way Christians read the OT in distinctly different ways that Jewish readers. Not wrong or better,
When I said, 'Both wrong', above, this was the first. And I was probably wrong. Seeing what I was loaded to see. I compared the NT hermeneutic with ours and ours IS more right and better. But that's not in there? In what you were saying?
Because what is in there is the obvious differentiation of Jewish and Christian readings of the OT. I assume you mean cumulatively, consensually on either side to date. Not in the C1st (in which they were one and the same initially: Jewish and Christian). If so I feel that there can, should be no valid difference. That postmodern Jews and Christians would agree on what the OT says. It's Christians in general who are more likely to get it wrong; the unscholarly, the paradoxically Zionist. Religious non-messianic Jews certainly don't believe that Isaiah 7:14 presages Christ. Neither should Christians. Do any Jews believe that the post-exilically fulfilled prophecies have duality in 1948?
quote:
just distinctly different, as per our own unique pov. Nothing wrong with that, but important to acknowledge it rather than pretending we're not.
Again, I would expect nothing distinctly different. We're both messianic, the devout Jews are still waiting for the first coming (except the messianic Jews of course ...). I would expect postmodern scholars to agree regardless of being devoutly Jewish, Christian or atheist.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I doubt the virgin birth doctrine has anything to do with Christ being God.
This was my second of both wrongs. And I'm obviously missing something. The virgin birth is essential in Christ being God unless one has Spongiform theolopathy. And you don't LC.
quote:
quote:
Nobody I'm aware of in mainstream Christianity thinks that Godhood is transmitted genetically/hereditarily, as blue eyes or pointy ears might be.
I don't see the connection.
quote:
quote:
I think the function of the doctrine is to point out "hey, God is doing something new here, pay attention!" a la Isaiah 43, and also to emphasize both Jesus' continuity with the rest of humanity (via Mary) and his discontinuity (via the act-of-new-creation that made a fatherless birth possible).
A child born from these circumstances cannot be classified as non-human (and therefore unable to share in the burdens of humanity, or able to redeem them as an interested individual). Nor can he be classed as just an ordinary person. The doctrine forces us to look more closely.
Beautiful.
And you seem to be confirming the essentiality of the virgin birth.
I'll get me coat.
[ 06. November 2016, 17:27: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Agree that the NT authors and Matthew in particular do not "follow the rules" of hermeneutics as we understand them today, especially re OT prophecy. I think the "rules" are important, and useful, but I also think the fact that the NT authors don't follow them is also interesting. Among other things, I think it suggests interesting things about the way Christians read the OT in distinctly different ways that Jewish readers. Not wrong or better, just distinctly different, as per our own unique pov. Nothing wrong with that, but important to acknowledge it rather than pretending we're not.
Care is needed here. One of the things Paul put a lot of energy into doing was showing how the whole Jesus-story fits into the OT. He's reading the OT in exactly the same way as any C1 Jew in that respect- the hermeneutic is identical.
The difference comes, in that he believed that the OT promises had been implemented in full, and more; whereas his C1 Jewish compatriots mostly denied that.
I was thinking of the gospels more than Paul. While I would agree that Paul takes great pains to show how the Jesus-story fits with the OT (as does Matthew even more so) I'll have to ponder whether or not I would agree that Paul reads the OT in "the same way as any C1 Jew does". Certainly Matthew does not. I think there are probably significant difference for Paul as well, but I'd have to ponder on that. But the point being that "fitting with the OT' is not the same as "read the same way". They are making an apologetic based on Hebrew Scriptures, but not necessarily reading them the same way as their contemporaries. This is anathema to most OT scholars, of course, but I think the evidence is unmistakeable and we do a great deal of damage when we try to deny that-- either to the clearest intent of the NT text or to the 1c Jewish understanding.
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kwesi:
[qb] Thus, while I would agree that God is capable of engineering a virgin birth and that could have been the case respecting the conception of Jesus, I don’t see why he would have chosen so to do.
A good argument for the conclusion that the Early Church didn't invent the virgin birth. They would have agreed with your point, and the Gospel would have proceeded perfectly well without it.
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
There also needs to be care about understanding what how NT authors use texts. For example, a short quote often refers to a much longer passage- and looking up the context of a quote should be standard procedure.
One difference is that many modern Xians tend to use OT-prophecy-coming-true as an apologetics proof of 'Jesus', whereas the NT writers and the Early Church were seeing how events they had experienced had been described in the OT texts (event to text rather than text to event).
Agree with the above. "Foreshadowing" is often the word used instead of the more traditional "prophesy" to describe those sort of references to the OT. I don't think that translates into "the same as 1c Jews" through.
Martin: sorry buddy, once again, I'm not following what you're saying/ asking/ disputing so can't really respond. Sorry!
[ 15. November 2016, 05:16: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
Sorry-- messed up my editing in the middle there so it looks like the response to Kwei's comment on the virgin birth is mine, when in fact it was Sarah's. I'm not really disputing or commenting on what either is saying there, just a random thought that got left in there with my editing by mistake.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
...And then the final bolded quote is attributed to me when it is Sarah's comment, which I am responding to.
Not sure how I managed to mess it up so much. Enough there for much confusion. Bleh
[ 15. November 2016, 05:21: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Martin: sorry buddy, once again, I'm not following what you're saying/ asking/ disputing so can't really respond. Sorry!
Aye cliffdweller. I was confused by what LC said, which you endorsed: "I doubt the virgin birth doctrine has anything to do with Christ being God.", although she then went on as if she assumed the VB, which is what I expect of you both.
The Virgin Birth surely, therefore, has everything to do with Christ being God, although, of course, there is no God chromosome. A point she went on to make in effect.
Theological liberals beyond us would say that Jesus was conceived normally by Mary's lover before she married Joseph and that the Second Person of God intersected His nature, whatever that is, on the resulting completely ordinary human brain and its emergent mind in some way.
We conservative theological liberals don't accept the former, we accept the Matthian horse without the Matthian cart of Isaiah. And we accept the latter.
I see God's respect of Mary (who'd have been well within her rights to decline the honour) and subsequently of humanity in not taking possession of a normally conceived human.
We are still left with the ultimate mystery of what Jesus, the incarnate hypostatic union of natures - whatever they are, was.
Anybody else ever felt that there is an implicit promise of universalism in the Incarnation? If any human being can be given a divine nature then ALL can and will be. Otherwise God COULD have done something better: impart divine nature at EVERY conception.
[ 16. November 2016, 11:36: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Martin: sorry buddy, once again, I'm not following what you're saying/ asking/ disputing so can't really respond. Sorry!
Aye cliffdweller. I was confused by what LC said, which you endorsed: "I doubt the virgin birth doctrine has anything to do with Christ being God.", although she then went on as if she assumed the VB, which is what I expect of you both.
The Virgin Birth surely, therefore, has everything to do with Christ being God, although, of course, there is no God chromosome.
There is, of course, a mystery - how can the Infinite become incarnate in a finite human being, how can the Creator become one of His creatures?
I don't think the Virgin Birth actually directly addresses that mystery. Born of Mary, Christ is still begotten not created, still human, still finite. The birth narratives all point to His humanity, but they are also signs of something more. Signs point to something, they are not themselves that something. The Virgin Birth points to Christ being God Incarnate, that reality would not be any different in the absence of the sign.
I think it's possible to believe in the full divinity of Christ without accepting the Virgin Birth. Likewise, it's possible to accept the Virgin Birth and not accept the divinity of Christ.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
I like the bifurcations Alan. And the semiotics. Without the signs, the claims are even more vastly reduced for the vast majority of mortals. We end up with rationalized, reductionist humanism. No transcendent hope. The end result of Spongiform theolopathy. Well I do. Nothing in my back yard says 'Therefore God.'. Full Monte Jesus does.
For the liberal liberal He doesn't even need to have been resurrected, so He doesn't need to have been conceived of the Holy Ghost. Or even have existed. I don't have that much faith. The fullness of physicalist reality is otherwise totally overwhelming.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Martin: sorry buddy, once again, I'm not following what you're saying/ asking/ disputing so can't really respond. Sorry!
Aye cliffdweller. I was confused by what LC said, which you endorsed: "I doubt the virgin birth doctrine has anything to do with Christ being God.", although she then went on as if she assumed the VB, which is what I expect of you both.
The Virgin Birth surely, therefore, has everything to do with Christ being God, although, of course, there is no God chromosome. A point she went on to make in effect.
LC is of course very very capable of speaking for herself, but my interpretation of her remark (what I was agreeing with) is that the virgin birth is not essential to the notion of the incarnation-- i.e. God could become human in all sorts of ways, it didn't
have to be a virgin birth. I would see the virgin birth the way John in particular posits all the Jesus-miracle stories: as a sign. They as a whole and the virgin birth in particular are pointing us to the new thing that God is doing in brining about His Kingdom.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Theological liberals beyond us would say that Jesus was conceived normally by Mary's lover before she married Joseph and that the Second Person of God intersected His nature, whatever that is, on the resulting completely ordinary human brain and its emergent mind in some way.
We conservative theological liberals don't accept the former, we accept the Matthian horse without the Matthian cart of Isaiah. And we accept the latter.
"Conservative theological liberal"??? A bit of an oxymoron, but that probably fits for me. And as such, I would agree. I accept the virgin birth, not because of a dubious (albeit bolstered by the LXX) translation of Isaiah 7, but because of Matthew's witness.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I see God's respect of Mary (who'd have been well within her rights to decline the honour) and subsequently of humanity in not taking possession of a normally conceived human.
hmmm... this does not follow for me. But it may hinge on what you mean by "taking possession of"-- if you're talking about "possessing" in something like what we envision with a demonic possession-- taking over the person's autonomy and control-- then yeah, I guess I would see declining to do so as an act of respect-- altho I would see the respect to be of the inhabited person (the "normally conceived human being") rather than of Mary per se. But I don't think those are the only options as to how it could have been done/look like. But we are way way off in the speculative weeds now. Suffice it to say that the virgin birth was a sign of the new thing that is becoming.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Anybody else ever felt that there is an implicit promise of universalism in the Incarnation? If any human being can be given a divine nature then ALL can and will be. Otherwise God COULD have done something better: impart divine nature at EVERY conception.
I don't think Jesus was "given" a divine nature, I think he eternally was and is God-- i.e. his nature IS one with the divine nature. So I don't think universalizing that follows. The Christ-event is a unique event. We cannot become Christ. But we can follow Christ, we can become Christ-like, we can live into our creation as image-bearers. But we are the image of the Creator, not the Creator itself.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Could Jesus be the Messiah if Joseph was the father?
I think not, according to Matthew's genealogy. The descendant of David, Jeconiah, was cursed and his offspring denied the privilege of sitting on the throne.
If Jesus was descended from him then he is debarred from being King.
quote:
“Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah” (Jeremiah 22 v 30
If Jesus is the son of Mary and another man, not Joseph, then she is an adulteress.
[ 16. November 2016, 17:00: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
cliffdweller. Jesus was a new creation. A new Adam. A new entity. A new hypostasis, a new person according to Chalcedon. If He pre-existed as a person, then He replaced a human being. Didn't just possess one, obliterated it. If He pre-existed as the Son, congruently, the same entity, what happened to the transfinite, pre-eternal Second Person of the Godhead between Jesus' conception (the ultimate collapsar, of a Person of God in to a fertilized human ovum) and resurrection? Who was minding the store? And don't say it's a mystery!
It's all about what we mean by nature in the Chalcedonian Creed. We can't go any further until that is resolved.
I submit that you are not being Chalcedonian.
Chalcedon seems to be implying that Jesus is fully God the Son of God and fully Son of Man by nature and the (new, unique) hypostasis of those natures in a (new, unique) person.
No?
We HAVE to speculate. As Alan Guth does cosmologically in such a way as to make the physical self-explanatory, complete.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Sorry, you DO talk of His divine nature and that that constitutes Him being fully God.
But it DOESN'T. We blur God and Man as adjectival nouns. We say He was fully human, man and fully divine, God (in His natures) and forget we are talking natures. Whatever they are. And we strain toward ... and more ... Him being two persons, unconsciously. We assume it under the surface.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
[QUOTE] We HAVE to speculate.
Au contraire that is why we have the scripture.
Luke's genealogy is the bloodline and it excludes Jeconiah which is another tick for fulfilment of prophecy. Jer 22:30 (Coniah mentioned here is Jeconiah)
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Sorry?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
[QUOTE] We HAVE to speculate.
Au contraire that is why we have the scripture.
Luke's genealogy is the bloodline and it excludes Jeconiah which is another tick for fulfilment of prophecy. Jer 22:30 (Coniah mentioned here is Jeconiah)
Luke's genealogy is Mary's genealogy and, not including Jeconiah, proves that Mary (and Jesus) are related to King David by another route.
One must exclude Joseph.
[ 16. November 2016, 23:08: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
[QUOTE] We HAVE to speculate.
Au contraire that is why we have the scripture.
Luke's genealogy is the bloodline and it excludes Jeconiah which is another tick for fulfilment of prophecy. Jer 22:30 (Coniah mentioned here is Jeconiah)
Luke's genealogy is Mary's genealogy and, not including Jeconiah, proves that Mary (and Jesus) are related to King David by another route.
One must exclude Joseph.
Exactly
[ 16. November 2016, 23:45: Message edited by: Jamat ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
[QUOTE] We HAVE to speculate.
Au contraire that is why we have the scripture.
Luke's genealogy is the bloodline and it excludes Jeconiah which is another tick for fulfilment of prophecy. Jer 22:30 (Coniah mentioned here is Jeconiah)
Luke's genealogy is Mary's genealogy and, not including Jeconiah, proves that Mary (and Jesus) are related to King David by another route.
One must exclude Joseph.
Whatever works for you Mudfrog. I'm sure it's all totally accurate but it wouldn't matter to me if it wasn't recorded. It mattered then to some.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
[QUOTE] We HAVE to speculate.
Au contraire that is why we have the scripture.
Luke's genealogy is the bloodline and it excludes Jeconiah which is another tick for fulfilment of prophecy. Jer 22:30 (Coniah mentioned here is Jeconiah)
Luke's genealogy is Mary's genealogy
Not so fast. How the heck do you get that from quote:
Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi,
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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?
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Seriously, I am reading individual words but you don't make a lot of sense.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
I don't see a logical connection.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
I can't see the disconnect.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
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?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
I'm as surprised as you Jamat! That it can be asked!
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Goldfish Stew (# 5512) on
:
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
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
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.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Goldfish Stew:
There are alternative views in Judaism
Very interesting - I love detailed comparisons of contentious passages.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@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.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
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.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
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 ]
Posted by Goldfish Stew (# 5512) on
:
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.
Posted by Goldfish Stew (# 5512) on
:
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
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
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.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
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?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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!
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
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.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
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?
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
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.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
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.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
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.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
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.
Posted by Goldfish Stew (# 5512) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
cliffdweller, perfectly parsimonious.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
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?
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
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
You are aware that that is a dedicated anti-messianic-Jewish site? I understand the reasons for setting such a site up, but it does mean that the agenda is largely driven by the need to refute a certain strain of protestantism.
But the document you link to doesn't seem wildly scholarly. Just to take a few points -
quote:
One difference is that
the Hebrew text, in both versions, utilizes verbs that are conjugated in the past
tense, and which describe a sequence of events that has already taken place, while
the corresponding verbs in KJV translation are conjugated the present and future
tenses, thereby describing events that ar
e contemporary and also still to come.
This makes little sense. It seems to be quoting a modern Hebrew text rather than the Masoretic text which was in Ancient Hebrew. My understanding of that being that he must have imported the assumptions of the modern Hebrew text (which does have tenses) into the way the translators handled the ancient Hebrew text, which is not marked for tense. Tense has to be supplied by the translator according to context.
(Actually, I'm not sure he grasps the use of KJV English either - at the time it was written, the perfect tense could be formed using a range of auxiliary verbs, so "is born" could be either present or past perfect in the passive voice. It achieved its current stability later. There is a lot more of that confusion later on.)
quote:
Another important difference between the KJV and Jewish translations of the first
3
verse is in the list of names/titles. The Jewish translation lists four names/titles,
none of which is modified with a definite article
the
(as in the Hebrew text). The
Christian translation lists five, the first two
of which are split out of the first Hebrew
one and are without a definite article, and each of the last three is capitalized and
has a definite article.
There is no definite article in the name right enough, but the number of attributes thing seems a bit of a stretch - it relies on whether you see "wonderful counsellor" or "wonderful, counsellor". Not exactly something I'd hang my hat on. It strikes me that Mudfrog's interpretation, that this as a unity as a name, is the way to go.
quote:
With the exception of a subtle difference in the respective translations of the second
verse, Isaiah 9:6[7], other differences are,
in general, insignificant with respect to the
context of the passage. Both the Hebrew text and the Jewish translation of this
verse capture the message – the explanation of the series of names/titles from the
previous verse – in one sentence. Yet,
the KJV translators start a new sentence
with Isaiah 9:6[7], which removes the continuity from the previous verse, and then
they break this verse into two separat
e sentences, which results in an abstruse
redirection of the focus in order to support their translation of the previous verse, as
will be demonstrated later.
Hmmm. Chapter and verse boundaries are of course not present in the original. But the MT text at 9:6[7] starts with a reduplication. It seems to me that the decision to start a new verse here is a reasonable way of honouring the device. You could argue that doing a straight run-on is failing to account for the device. But in fact in either case, the decision is somewhat arbitrary.
quote:
Isaiah 9:5-6
is not
a messianic prophecy according to the Jewish perspective.
What???!!! There are all sorts of ancient Talmudic Jewish writings confirming the understanding that this whole passage is messianic. Yes, of course it refers at the top level to Hezekiah, but I can only assume the writer is using the word "prophecy" to mean something like fortune-telling. Which admittedly it gets to look like in certain hands. But it's all about the further unwrapping of God's word and purposes, and uses symbology to do that. "It's like this..." This passage has symbology running through it like a stick of rock.
OK - tl:dr - I gave up at this point.
Posted by Goldfish Stew (# 5512) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
You are aware that that is a dedicated anti-messianic-Jewish site?
Yes. I was merely responding to the comments before implying that anyone who read this passage would draw the same conclusions that many christians have.
quote:
My understanding of that being that he must have imported the assumptions of the modern Hebrew text (which does have tenses) into the way the translators handled the ancient Hebrew text, which is not marked for tense. Tense has to be supplied by the translator according to context.
As I read it, the writer of the article was highlighting the inconsistency of approaches with tense etc in the KJV. Your last sentence "according to context" is relevant, because in the context of christian interpretations of the bible there's a risk of an agenda to fit the words to a NT perspective, so instead of writing this as "was born ... is called" there's a revisionist approach that says "is (or even will be in some versions) born, will be called". Massaging the facts to fit the theology.
quote:
It strikes me that Mudfrog's interpretation, that this as a unity as a name, is the way to go.
Indeed - that is another approach taken to understanding this passage that doesn't lead to the view that the messiah is divine (or that the son is the father.)
quote:
There are all sorts of ancient Talmudic Jewish writings confirming the understanding that this whole passage is messianic. Yes, of course it refers at the top level to Hezekiah, but I can only assume the writer is using the word "prophecy" to mean something like fortune-telling. Which admittedly it gets to look like in certain hands. But it's all about the further unwrapping of God's word and purposes, and uses symbology to do that. "It's like this..." This passage has symbology running through it like a stick of rock.
I'd be curious to see some examples of the Jewish writings that view this as messianic and how they account for the claim that it means the messiah is divine.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Wow. Guys. Kwesi is of course right. This is about Hezekiah.
I've just closed a loop of cognitive dissonance that I didn't know was there, ploughing back a liberal, postmodern understanding in to the texts.
And so is Mudfrog and Jamat. Right. Even the Jewish Targum concludes that this is Messianic. But it's in the hindsight eye of the beholder, it's incredibly subtle.
The wiki article on the verse is excellent and refers to the scholarship of The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford Press) of 2004. There must be older provenance than that.
"Pele-joez-el-gibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom
...
This long name is the throne name of the royal child. Semitic names often consist of sentences that describe God; ... These names do not describe that person who holds them but the god whom the parents worship."
One can link to the long name article from there:
"[The long name] is variously interpreted as
"Wonderful in counsel is God the mighty, the Everlasting Father, the Ruler of Peace" (Hertz 1968),
or
"his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (KJV)."
The KJV does not have Hertz' authority.
This STILL looks solely Messianic: Isaiah 9:7(KJV)
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
But again, post-NT Christianity saw it, used it, none of the NT writers.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
Goldfish Stew - let me see if I can respond to your points and in doing so draw some conclusions to Kwesi's earlier post that wondered about messianic prophesies that saw the messiah as being God in some way.
quote:
As I read it, the writer of the article was highlighting the inconsistency of approaches with tense etc in the KJV. Your last sentence "according to context" is relevant, because in the context of christian interpretations of the bible there's a risk of an agenda to fit the words to a NT perspective, so instead of writing this as "was born ... is called" there's a revisionist approach that says "is (or even will be in some versions) born, will be called". Massaging the facts to fit the theology.
I don't think that case can be sustained. The act of translation into any modern language - which includes modern Hebrew - requires the translator to use a verb that has a tense. We don't have any verbs unmarked for tense. The thing is that that is as true for the good rabbi as it was for the translators of the KJV. The interesting thing is that the LXX (the oldest translation we have and itself much older than the MT) does in fact use the future tense, and presumably the KJV translators were following that. The question surely then becomes - where did this perfect tense come from?
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I'd be curious to see some examples of the Jewish writings that view this as messianic and how they account for the claim that it means the messiah is divine.
That's two separate things. I was simply refuting the assertion that Jews didn't see the passage as messianic. Maybe he doesn't, but on a historical basis it is demonstrable nonsense.
However, concerning the second point relating to the issue of the messiah being divine. I'm not aware that this passage of Isaiah was used in that way. Though I need to add that I'm posting this from memory and no longer have the books I would need to hand to check.
But my recollection was that the main discussion in the intertestamental period was concerning how the prophecies of a kingly messiah could be reconciled with the prophecies of a priestly messiah. The "divine" messiah was the concern of a minority, but as I recall it, they didn't use this text, but pointed to texts such as Ezekiel 34 where it appears the the prophet speaks of the shepherd being both divine and kingly ("David", though of course this is a metaphor, being post-Davidic)- and psalm 110. Which latter Jesus also did.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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Originally posted by Martin60:
The Virgin Birth surely, therefore, has everything to do with Christ being God, although, of course, there is no God chromosome.
A few weeks ago I gave a talk to a class of 16 Catholic seminarians. All expecting to become priests, all young men, mostly white Americans.
I asked them if they believed in the virgin birth, and whether seminarians today are taught to accept it as factual. They said yes.
I asked the same about the immaculate conception. They said yes.
I asked them if they believe that the biblical miracles literally happened. They said yes.
I asked them if they were OK that the priesthood is still restricted to men. They said yes.
Of course their teacher was with them, who happened to be a woman.
In any case, there you have it. Even today Catholic seminarians still believe.
And of course Muslims universally accept the virgin birth of Jesus. I hadn't realized that until recently.
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