I said:
wYou only have to compare literal readings of the Old Testament in English, to the Jewish interpertations of the Hebrew, to see an accentuated difference. Sublety and nuance seem particularly to be lost.
hear, hear - and this is to say nothing of the impossibility of making sense of the Written Law in the Pentateuch without the Oral Law of the Talmud.
marsh - i realise this is the christian forum, (i never liked the idea of splitting them by religion - after all, this is comparative, ain't it?) but when you refer to jewish texts, treating them as mere precursors to christian texts and attempting to interpret them as such, it should not be surprising that i take issue with it if i think you're claiming that they say something that i don't think that they say. if we were convinced that the OT prophesied the coming of jesus as the messiah, we'd be christians. i think that christianity needs to be feasible in its own right, using the NT as its sacred texts, not try and co-opt judaism in support. you don't need us as either villains or ancestors to be credible.
marsh said:
As for your statement about Boaz, I think you should read that book again: without him, there's really not much of a story.
hmmm. i could say the same of ruth. there's a reason the book is named after her, not him. it's to do with prophecies about the lineage of the messiah.
But what is this Jewish nation that you speak of? What does God see nations as?
the jewish nation is the jewish people. the english words "nation" and "people" are used to translate two different words, "AM" and "GoY", which have similar, but not precisely equivalent, meanings, which i can look up for you if you like. when i use the phrase "jewish nation" in english, i don't mean a modern nation-state. i mean the entire community, the complete ethno-religious group if you like. when the Torah speaks of nations, it distinguishes between the jews and, say, the egyptians, not on the basis of a modern multicultural society, but on the basis of ethnic groups living in their own contiguous territories - "strangers" may live among them, but they are not part of the "nation". some "nations" referred to in the Torah, like the amalekites and the seven canaanite nations, can no longer be identified, so are effectively extinct. nowadays i think it would be safe to say that the only recognisable biblical "nation" still extant is probably ourselves. is this what you were asking?
in reference to the quote jeremiah 18, i understand how that may seem to you, but the potter does not throw the lump of clay away and take another lump instead. he keeps working on the same clay - and the clay, though altered, is still recognisable as a pot. the potter hasn't decided to make something else out of the clay instead, like a statue.
The Jews, like every nation, are a nation only insofar as God wills it that way, and the moment that he decides to destroy it, raise it up, or modify it, we can consider it done immediately.
right - and we have been modified and raised up many times in our history, but never destroyed. we have to trust that G!D Is going to stick to the terms of the covenantal relationship - which *hasn't* modified.
Therefore, from that point on if God at any time wishes to draw the Gentiles into his fold, everything that is written in scripture to instruct his chosen people retroactively applies to new believers.
that's completely specious logic. for one thing, it relies on a concept of a "fold"; the inside of it being 'good', the outside of it being 'bad', which is completely *not* what our relationship with G!D is. unfortunately once you have divided the world into the "inside" and the "outside" you either have to condemn the "outside" or go out and bring them in. neither of these are acceptable to us, which is why we don't proselytise. who are christians to decide that the nature of the relationship between G!D and humanity should be conducted according to a specific agreement? and on behalf of the entire planet? by this logic, somebody living a good life in the amazonian jungle needs you to spread the word and come and "save" him. we don't subscribe to that. you'd do far better to look at it from the islamic PoV, which is that G!D Sends prophets to each and every group and speaks to them in their own way at their own time.
I believe that Jesus came to draw all mankind together; to be a light to the world, and not just to the Jews. Therefore, by faith, I can logically deduce that the scripture applies to me as well.
it's not at all logical. you're taking an existing covenant and rewriting one side of it to apply to you. not only that, there's even a covenantal relationship already in place; the noachide laws. if you want to come in on the agreement, fair enough, but you can't redraft the terms of the agreement for the parties already in it, especially given that our end of the agreement was to observe the Law.
God created me in his image, and he said I was very good. Then I fell, and so did you, and so did the Gentiles and so did the Jews. We all fell equally.
you are assuming that we all agree on that. we don't accept the idea of original sin and the "fall". certainly, adam sinned by disobeying the Divine command - but that's really not the point. we don't have to make amends for his sin; he wasn't even a human being as we understand the nature of such. you cannot have both eden and free-will. the two things are mutually exclusive. we are not angels, but have the capacity to choose.
Why, then, would God choose only the Jews to resurrect, and leave the Gentiles in the cold for all of eternity? That doesn't sound like someone who desires mercy over sacrifice.
no, i dare say not. the answer is that this ISN'T WHAT IS GOING ON. the jews are to be redeemed from our current state of expulsion and downtroddenness by Moshiach, not admitted to some sort of spiritual VIP lounge while everyone else languishes behind the velvet rope. by our redemption the world is supposed to be improved for EVERYONE, not just us.
Actually, I find it kind of amazing that Jesus-- who never went to school and as such should have been for the most part illiterate
er, no he wouldn't have been at all. there's a thread on this somewhere. literacy was extremely good in 1st-century judea, if not everywhere else.
If God comes in all shapes, forms and sizes why isn't that written in the scripture? Why are there instead teachings against idolatry?
the teachings against idolatry are against idolatry, not against other ways of approaching the Divine. idols are things, worshipped in a variety of unpleasant ways and the forms of idolatry that are inveighed against in the OT no longer exist. have you met a molech worshipper recently? or someone who worships dagon, milcom or pe'or, G!D forbid? even the idiots that think they're worshipping baal and asherah nowadays aren't doing the sort of things that the prophets were trying to prevent us doing. the inclination to idolatry ceased with the destruction of the Temple.
and in reference to isaiah 61, it's still about the jews. in order to make it about everyone, you have to ignore the bit about it being specifically aimed at "those who mourn in zion" and which ancient ruins are meant. the captives spoken are the captives of the [babylonian or perhaps second] exile, which was what isaiah was talking about as far as we are concerned. and if it is, then you also need to note the bit about "in My faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them". in fact, sorry, marsh; the more i look at this passage, the more specific to us it looks and the less universalist.
b'shalom
bananabrain
