There have been a couple of links that have placed on this blog pointing visitors to the site Netzarim (Hellinized "Nazarene"): Orthodox Israeli Jews, Ra'ana, Israel. I'm all for this blog being open to all viewpoints including idea counterposed to my own. This is why I keep the comments sections open and do not censer the comments. This particular web sites makes claims against Christianity that I do not agree with. I would like to have a dialog on the issues that are brought up on the site. Let me list the claims that I think should be discussed in more detail. The site attempts to make its claims starting from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic perspectives and then bringing them into a single argument. My problem is that the site misrepresents what I, as Christian, believes. Here are a few more of the statements I have issue with. I will be writing this response in 3 parts. This is the 3rd part and my comments are in red..
5. No one can follow two polar-opposite masters — the authentic, historical, pro-Torah 1st-century Ribi from Nazareth and the 4th-century (post-135 C.E.), arch-antithesis anti-Torah apostasy developed by the Hellenists (namely the Sadducees and Roman pagans who conspired to kill Ribi Yәhoshua, displaced his original followers and redacted the NT).
There is no proof Jesus' message was changed by anyone or the the New Testament was redacted in any way. All the NT texts predate 135 AD and not a single example at Netzarim is givcen to show how any of the textual variations change anything of what the NT says and teaches.
6. NT wasn't even written until 4 centuries after the death of Ribi Yehoshua. (The few fragments of Greek papyri from the 3rd century were likely either Roman Hellenist paraphrases from Hebrew Matityahu or Roman Hellenist syncretisms.) Even then, only the Roman Hellenists, who had separated from the original Jewish followers by 135 C.E., accepted them.
This simply is not true. We have fragments and references to texts of the NT well before 200 AD.
7. There are thousands of redactions in the earliest extant source manuscripts of NT.
This true, but that doesn't mean that you can't tust what the manuscripts say and nor does it say that we don't know what the NT says.
8. Easter wasn't celebrated until several centuries after the death of Ribi Yehoshua… and then it was syncretized from the festival for the pagan goddess I*sh*t*a*r / A*sh*t*o*r*e*th by the Roman Hellenists who had separated from the original Jewish followers by 135 C.E.
According to Acts, the first Christians celebrated Jesus' resurrection every week! So what if it only began being called Easter when it was merged and supplanted a pagan festival? It does not matter.
I sense either dishonesty or ignorance st this point. Sunday was the first day of the week and Bible clearly says that it was common practice for Christians to meet the first day of the week...even prior to 70 AD!
1Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. 3Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. 4If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me. 1 Corinthian 15:1-4
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You need to read history. The 'Chrxtian' religion developed as a result of hellenist (greek and romanized people) who wanted to remain in power under the Roman government. Failing meant destruction by Rome (which happened). Paul took up the offer of the wicked hig priest at the time and began putting together a counter force to stop the successful outreach of the Netzarim (the true Jewish followers of Ribi Yehoshua). The NT was not assembled or written until Constatine ordered the many factions calling themselves Chrxtians to get together at the Council of Nicea. Proof: Discovery has several historic videos backing that up, History Channel also has scientific discovery in video, Chrxtian fathers (Catholic) writings say they made things up, X-mas wasn't observed until several hundred years after the fact, Estxr wasn't celebrated until hundreds of years later, Christianity= Hoax and Truth = Torah (Dereck HaSheim). Chrxtianity says it comes from Torah roots yet it teaches the opposite. How can that be?
ReplyDeleteFirst: Where are you reading your history?
ReplyDeleteSecond: You have no evidence for your claims against Paul. He was converted and began to teach the same thing Ribi Yehoshua (Jesus) and his apostles taught.
Third: All the books of NT were known and being read before Constantine was even born. We have copies dating to before his birth.
Fourth: The Council of Nicea had nothing to do with canonizing the New Testament. Yes, Dan Brown got it wrong. A good summary of what the first council of Nicea discussed in 325 Ad can be found here
Fifth: Let's think about those History and Discovery Channel documentaries. some of them are good, but some of them are real bad and don't show the whole of scholarship on the subjects they address. For example, The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Gospel of Judas are examples that can be easily answered and refuted by anyone who gives a peak to the evidence. What documentaries are you asserting "prove" you right?
Sixth: What does the celebration of Easter or Christmas have to do with the validity of the New Testament? Celebrating either isn't commanded nor prohibited. Your point escapes me.
Seventh: Torah is true....Bottom line. But where does the New Testament teach opposite or contrary? Simple: It doesn't!
Let us proceed from the "Bottom line," your words added to "Torah is true." Simple logic that any computer can solve. Statement 1., Torah is true. Statement 2., The Torah forbids serving other elohim. See the ten matters commonly referred to as the ten commandments, the first one. Statement 3., Ea=ster is a celebration of Ish=tar that is where it comes from originally with it's focus on the god-ess of fertility, Eas=ter eggs, prolific rabbits and other things. Since one 1 is true and 2 is true if 3 is saying you may serve another elohim then it is a contradiction of the truth of Torah. Have you never read Paul wanting to get to Yrushalayim, Jerusalem for those ignorant of Hebrew, before Eas-ter. But it says Pesach in the original. The translators could never have gotten away with that in the first century just like they couldn't have called a man from Yisrael, (Israel), Jzeus, in the first century. It happened a good while after. The real human being that lived in Yisrael in the first century was Yehoshua ben Yoseph ben Dawid HaMashiach, the Messiah. Probably the most Torah observant Jew ever and taught his talmidim/students to be also. There is a term today for what was done with his name - identity theft.
ReplyDeleteA computer would choke on your logic because Jesus (Yeshua or Yehoshua) is not a different God. He is the "I AM" who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. "He is the image of the invisible God." You obviously don't understand what the Trinity is.
ReplyDeleteThe Word "Easter" only appears in the King James Translation at Acts 12:4; more modern translations like the NIV use "passover" instead of "easter"! The 1st Century church did not celebrate "easter" they celebrated passover - equating Jesus to our passover lamb! You yourself recognize that the word is "Passover" not "Easter". "Jesus" is the transliteration of the Greek transliteration of "Yeshua". Jesus was a Jew and the best - sinless - human being who ever or ever will exist! He is the perfect lamb. There is no identity theft, but you have mis-identified the messiah of humanity and have accused Paul of things that are not true.
If a computer would choke on my logic it would explode on your 1=3. I didn't quite understand if you were saying Ea=ster/Ish=tar is forbidden in the Torah? You in actuality don't keep the Torah and therefore should not say it is "Bottom line." By the way the KJV until last century was The English version and it still may be. So alot of people are still reading Eas=ter and doing Eas=ter, and Xmas, and Hall=oween and claiming falsely to keep Torah.
ReplyDeleteEliya, The trinity is not saying that one being = three beings - that would be polytheism and an anathema. God in one being where three persons are that one being. One being does not necessarily mean one person. For more on this look at my articles on this blog on the trinity and check out Mariano's blog at Atheism Is Dead.
ReplyDeleteAs for King James Version being only English translation up to 100 years ago does that meatter?What is authoritative - a translation or the text from which the translation comes? Given a choice,I trust the original texts which say "Passover" not "Easter" in Acts 12:4 and i would venture to say that neither Peter, Paul, nor Luke knew anything about "Easter", "Christmas", or "Halloween"....they all came later and were Christianized from Pagan religions. So, again I have to ask how does that invalidate historic Christianity or the New Testament? simple. It doesn't.
Do you drive a car on the Sabbath? Do you cook on the Sabbath? Do you wear polyester? Do you kill heifers to atone for your sins? If you don't, then you don't keep the cremonial laws of the Torah any more than I do - which Jesus fulfilled perfectly - all of it! I keep the Torah the way the early 1st century gentile Christians kept it. Do you?
Are you kidding me? There was never a hint in the Tanach about a "trinity." The One was always only one by definition. Can you read the Hebrew? The Singularity does not change. And what exactly are you repenting of? Sin is however YOU define it, but the Torah specifically enumerates both what to do and not to do because it, the Torah, is the instruction. Torah=instruction. I don't drive on Shabbat, don't cook on Shabbat, polyester is a man made material not linen or wool, there is no physical "Temple," no lineage to determine priesthood, both required to offer korban and again your definition of sin is yours alone because the Torah defines missteps and felonies, like breaking Shabbat which I am quite sure you do. There is no kipur for willfull breaking of the mitzwot of Torah. Kipur for any misstep of Torah is only provided for those who do their best to keep the insrtruction, all of it.
ReplyDeleteYou know you don't keep the who Torah because I know you don't do the blood sacrifices to atone for your sins. I don't define Sin. Dying in your sins mean eternal separation from God. If you say follow Torah, how do you atone? The Torah is very clear about what Sin is. We all sin in word, thought, and deed - the only exception is Jesus.
ReplyDeleteOf course the Trinity is hinted at in the Tanak and the Torah. I agree the singularity does not change. One what? One Person? They are not the same thing! The Trinity doctrinally is that God is one being.
1. Who was it that Abraham saw and talked with in Genesis 18?
2. Who was it that was with the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace?
3. Who was it that talked to Samson's parents in Judges 13 (especially vs 22)
4. Who did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? Jesus' earliest followers said that it was Jesus' glory (John 12:37-41)
5. Who was it that spoke to Moses from the Burning bush (Exodus 18)?
God!
Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are all equated.
The Hebrew Bible is full of examples of times when God dwelled among men whenever he desired - in a variety of forms and in many ways. And He did it ultimately in Jesus Christ - The Messiah.
Even your own writings say "No man has seen G-od at any time...John 1:18. So what did John know that you can't figure out? What about Shabbat? If you don't keep it your out.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot the rest of John 1:18
ReplyDeleteNo one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
John was talking about Jesus. No one has seen the Father. Jesus also said in John 14:9
Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
As for the Sabbath, I know what you think of Paul's letter so why don't we got to the Torah itself. Was the Sabbath for all of humanity or just the Jews? Exodus 31:16 says
The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.
Give me a verse in the Torah that says that all of humanity was meant for the sabbath and not in the context of theocratic ancient Israel. This is also the answer for why we don't do sacrifices anymore...Jesus paid our sin debt.
Jesus said in Mark 2:27
Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
This proves that Sabbath keeping isn't going to get you into heaven.
I thought I was clear...the Old Testament patriarchs, prophets, and saints who interacted with a physical manifestation of God, did not see God - the Father - they saw Jesus.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't matter what verse I gave you, as you would side step it according to the way you have side stepped every question so far. If the Torah was only for certain men then HaSheim dooms some to destruction, which He doesn't. HaSheim still provides kipur for Yisrael but you are not part of it. Ribi Yehoshua was sent to Yisrael not the goyim so maybe you can figure out that you need to be part of Yisrael and for that you need an Orthodox Beit Din to fulfill the halacha. But you will say that believing is all that counts like all the rest who follow after their own heart and eyes. Ribi Yehoshua's followers kept Torah while he was alive and after he died JUST LIKE HE DID until Rome destroyed all of them in the fourth century. Eusibius documents the true followers as keeping Torah like the Jews but also believing he was the Mashiach, not like the Xtians who gave up the Torah and used his name for idolatry. I can only suggest you retry www.netzarim.co.il and try to keep Torah to the best of your ability. HaSheim still provides kipur through His agent the Mashiach for those who do their utmost to keep Torah.
ReplyDeleteAs a Roman Catholic Apologist my brother in Christ has indeed fullfilled the passage in the Bible which states James 4:7, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
ReplyDeleteEliyahu round two with me .
Email me unvecua009@aol.com
Eliyahu Stop fleeing
ReplyDelete(sighs) for an elaboration on answering
ReplyDeletethe Trinity to Eliyahu
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity means that there are three Divine Personalities possessing the one Divine Nature. The word itself, of course, is but the blending of the two words, "tri-unity." The idea of a unity containing within itself a multiplicity is not very difficult. A single human being is very complex if you begin to analyze him. New just as you have a human nature, God has a Divine Nature. But, where there are many men, there is but one God; and there can be only one Divine Nature. Yet God is the living God. There is a life in Him who is the Author of life; and life means activity. As you, for example, though silent and still, can be intensely active within yourself, able to be thinking of yourself, and forming an estimate of yourself, so God must be able to know Himself within Himself, and must be capable of a great love following His knowledge of the infinitely Beautiful and Good and True. But this knowledge and love within God must be identified with Him, yet in some way distinct from the source from which they proceed. His knowledge must be the child of Infinite Intelligence, and it must give rise to a Spirit of Infinite Love. And we are told by Christ that in the one God there is a Fatherhood, a Sonship, and a Holy Spirit of Love. And these make three personal relationships within the one Divine Nature.
God had no intention of revealing the doctrine of the Trinity in its fullness to the Jews generally prior to the coming of Christ. However, in the Old Testament, there are many veiled references to the Word of God and to the Spirit of God which could serve as a preparation to men of good will for the full teaching of the New Testament. But actually, although the possibility of the full truth could be inferred, nothing approaching proof could be adduced from the Old Testament without the additional light of the New Testament and Catholic teaching. The Jews, therefore, could not have attained to the knowledge of the Trinity we possess prior to the coming of Christ.
ReplyDeleteNo man on earth can explain fully the Trinity. The finite mind cannot fully comprehend an infinite being. Even did God condescend to explain the doctrine fully to you, you would lack the capacity necessary in order to comprehend it. It is a revealed mystery to be accepted as true merely because God teaches it. However, we can explain the doctrine which Christians must believe. There are three divine Personalities in one divine Nature—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three Persons are equal in all things; equally God, equally eternal, powerful, etc. God is an infinitely perfect and purely spiritual Being, active in His knowledge and love. The knowledge God has of Himself is a living Personality called the Son. The idea of intellectual generation is not foreign to us, for we ourselves speak of our own thoughts as concepts and as the offspring of our intelligence. The mutual and reciprocal love between Father and Son is also a living personality—the Holy Spirit. There is no contradiction in this doctrine. We do not speak of one divine nature, yet three divine natures; nor of three divine persons, yet one divine person. We speak of one Divine Nature, yet of three Divine Persons, nature, and personality being quite different aspects of our consideration. It is as if, when dealing with the Persons, we viewed numerical distinction, as in the addition of 1 + 1 + 1 into 3, yet when dealing with the Nature in which all three Persona share, that fusion which results in unity by multiplication of the same three figures— 1X1X1 equals 1. Yet whilst the absence of contradiction is clear, the full significance of the triune nature of God is beyond the limited capacity of the human mind. We know the fact by revelation, and believe it implicitly because God has revealed it.
ReplyDeleteChrist is the name given to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in His assumed human nature. As the Christ, therefore, He was not eternal, but began in time. But before the Second Person appeared on earth in this human form, he existed as the Eternal Son of God, equal with the Father in all things. But in His divine nature, if He be a son, how can He be as old as His Father? I'm afraid it is impossible to express an eternal fact in terms of time. Time is successive duration. We speak of growing old as time goes by. But in eternity there is no succession of time, and there can be no such thing as age when we speak of God. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost always exist, not existed; and they exist not for a long time, but without time. What we call now is only the indivisible instant which is the last moment of the past and the first moment of the future simultaneously. Our time is based upon the coming and going of movement. But there is no such thing in God. Yet the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is truly a son. A son is a being or person who derives from his father the same human nature possessed by the father. In the one God, the Second Person shares through the First Person exactly the same Divine Nature. And from that point of view He is the Son. But He differs from earthly sons in that He does not receive a numerically distinct nature, nor does He exist subsequently to the Father. He eternally participates in the Divine Nature through the Father. The word son in human language is the nearest inadequate approximation we can find to express the truth by analogy. To say that it completely expressed the reality would be to fall into that anthropomorphism which you would be the first to ridicule. You cannot object to the treating of God as if He were merely a kind of glorified created human being, and then refuse to believe on the score that Catholic theology does not explain Him in terms which would reduce Him to the same level as ourselves,
ReplyDeleteFinis
Judaism as a religion is no longer acceptable to God. The one true religion in this world is the Christian religion. But the Jewish people, as a whole, are a witness to the Christian religion in spite of themselves. They are dispersed everywhere, yet are one race and a permanent feature of this world. They manifest the very predictions of their own Scriptures, and of Christ, by their very refusal to secure the realization of those predictions. They preserve the very texts and prophecies announcing that they will love the promises, yet reject the fulfillment of those promises. It is a marvelous thing. How far individual Jews are responsible to God for their rejection of Christ must, of course, be left to God. The modern Jew would not be nearly so responsible as those Jews who actually saw and heard Christ in person.
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteMarcus wrote: “This proves that Sabbath keeping isn't going to get you into heaven.”
I want to comment on this. The post is quite long in order to establish common grounds and to write in an understandable way.
If the first century Ribi [his title] Yehoshua [aram. Yeshua] from Nazareth was ha-Masiakh (”the Messiah”) he must have fulfilled the Messianic prophecies of the Tan”kh -the Jewish Bible (containing the Torah [“books of Moses”] and the Jewish prophets).
One of them is Yeshayahu [”Isaiah”] 9:6 in Hebrew according to etymology - the science of the origins of words and their meaning. The prophecy describes in Hebrew that both Ribi Yehoshua ha-Mashiakh – the Messiah – and his followers will keep the directives of Torah and teach others that they must do likewise. One keyword in that verse is the word mishpat [see note 1].
This includes that his teachings about forgiveness must be in accordance with the Torah.
So lets' find out what the Tana''kh teaches about forgiveness!
As stipulated in Devarim ["Deuteronomy"] 6:4-9,11:13-21 one is required to keep all of the directives of Torâh′ to one’s utmost—viz., “with all one’s heart, psyche and might [lit. "very"]“—”for the purpose of extending your days and the days of your children… like the days of the heavens above the earth” (i.e., eternal life). According to the Tan’’kh -Yekhezeqeil ["Ezekiel"] chapter 18 et.al - the Creator confer His atonement in His loving kindness to those turning away from their Torah-transgressions and (re)turning to non-selectively Torah-observance.
According to Tan''kh He does not confer His atonement to persons whom wilfully reject any directive of the Torah, e.g. a person who eats pork or shellfish or rejects keeping the Shabbat.
Thus, this is what the historical Messiah must have taught about forgiveness!
It is possible to be forgiven by the Creator in His loving kindness when one does his/her utmost to live as the Creator desires! This is great news!!
Following the teachings of the human Messiah called Ribi Yehoshua leads oneself into a non-selectively Torah-observance to ones utmost, including an immensely meaningful relationship with the Creator.
Note 1: I explain the meaning on this link: Link
What do you say about the above?? Have a nice day!
Shalom, Anders
It may help to have a jesus centric view to understand the end of torah. Jesus was not the torah. If you follow torah you blind yousrlf to the full value of the cross and what it accomplished. No way around it, torah following = fall from grace. Denying crist work on the cross will truely land you in hell.
ReplyDelete