Matthew's big blunder - and what we can learn fro it

[JoeB131]

To don a biblical cloak - slave traders, Nazis, the Reverend Jimmy Jones - may be a clever ploy, but in the Christian world, the strong and the weak are the same; the lion lies down with the lamb.

Okay, but you think in a huge book about morality, you think they'd be able to write it clearly enough so it can't be abused by Nazis and Slave Traders and Cult leaders....

Especially one that was written under the inspiration of an infallible being.

 

[alang1216]

So there was Christianity for 200 years before they invented Jesus? What was Christianity based on if not Jesus?

No, Second Century AD. That said, I think there were probably a lot of things called "Christianity" that weren't. For instance, in one letter, Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) writes to a friend that in Alexandria, the worshipers or Jesus and Serapis are pretty much interchangable.

Again, what became "Christianity" happens after Constantine decided to make it the State religion in 303 AD and they decided to trim the hundreds of books they had down to the 26 that make up the new testament.

I don't think Roman ignorance of local religions means very much. The Romans did decide the future of Christianity but it happened much earlier than Constantine. There were two opposing factions, the expat one, represented by Paul, and the Jerusalem faction headed by Jesus' brother James. Paul said you didn't need to be a Jew to be a Christian while James disagreed. Rome decided the debate in 70 AD when they sacked Jerusalem and killed the Christians there.

I think Jesus was very real and became a Jewish cult leader after the death of John. That cult, like all cults that survive, became a religion in its own right. Christians certainly reinvented the historical Jesus as their Christ.

Here's the thing, there were probably a lot of would be messiahs at that time, and more then a few of them were named Yeshua (Jesus).

And maybe some of their stories got incorporated in the Jesus Myth.

But it was a myth.

Jews believe those that die on a tree are cursed. In Deuteronomy 21:22-23 we find the following law:

If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and you hang him on a tree, you must not leave the body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is a curse of God. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.​

Anyone who knew Jewish law and tradition would never have made up the crucifixion. That ending was enough to convince Jews that Jesus could not be the messiah. The messiah was expected to be a great general or big-shot religious leader. Jesus was neither.

 

[alang1216]

Nearly all of the change (progress) that has occurred in religion has happened as a direct result of the influence of secular society.

Would you like just a few examples of how you might be mistaken?

I could furnish a hundred or so more if you're not satisfied. In fact, since abolition to civil rights, the religious communities of America have been in the forefront of social change.

And even before abolition. In Colonial America, Christian churches were essentially the only places that slaves and Indians could enjoy some equality with others.

In the first century, even, Christians recognized the reality of slavery, the subjects of which Jesus extended salvation.

To don a biblical cloak - slave traders, Nazis, the Reverend Jimmy Jones - may be a clever ploy, but in the Christian world, the strong and the weak are the same; the lion lies down with the lamb.

The Christian church has never been monolithic and the church in the US was no different:

The word Southern in Southern Baptist Convention stems from it having been organized in 1845 at Augusta, Georgia, by Baptists in the Southern United States who split with northern Baptists over the issue of slavery, specifically whether Southern slave owners could serve as missionaries.​

There is so much material in the bible that you can find passages to support ANY position.

Ephesians 6:5 - Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would show to Christ.​

 

[norwegen]

To don a biblical cloak - slave traders, Nazis, the Reverend Jimmy Jones - may be a clever ploy, but in the Christian world, the strong and the weak are the same; the lion lies down with the lamb.

Okay, but you think in a huge book about morality, you think they'd be able to write it clearly enough so it can't be abused by Nazis and Slave Traders and Cult leaders....

Especially one that was written under the inspiration of an infallible being.

Constantine and Licinius signed the Edict of Milan in 313, not 303.

And the saints were called Christians in Antioch, long before that.

Indeed, some false messiahs emerged during the Jewish revolts - ordinary men whose deaths mattered to the world not a whit.

You make up Christian history like you make up political history, and I am at this moment pissing in the wind.

 

[JoeB131]

I don't think Roman ignorance of local religions means very much. The Romans did decide the future of Christianity but it happened much earlier than Constantine. There were two opposing factions, the expat one, represented by Paul, and the Jerusalem faction headed by Jesus' brother James. Paul said you didn't need to be a Jew to be a Christian while James disagreed. Rome decided the debate in 70 AD when they sacked Jerusalem and killed the Christians there.

But did they really? here's the thing. If Christians were blamed for the Great Fire in Rome by Nero, as Christian tradition claims, then they should have been well known by Hadrian's time. It would be like if in 2040, everyone forgot who Al Qaeda was in America.

However, if you accept that Christianity didn't really start to form until Hadrian's time, and they created a lot back stories about Jesus and were still defining their faith stealing bits from Serapis and Mithras and other mythologies, then Hadrian (who was actually a really well-educated guy for his time period) being confused would make a lot more sense.

Anyone who knew Jewish law and tradition would never have made up the crucifixion. That ending was enough to convince Jews that Jesus could not be the messiah. The messiah was expected to be a great general or big-shot religious leader. Jesus was neither.

I agree. But that works on the assumption that Jesus was made up by Jews. He probably wasn't. Keep in mind, Mark's gospel was written first, and reading it, you can tell Mark isn't particularly well informed about Jewish law or tradition or even geography. Matthew tries to correct Mark's mistakes, by making up prophecies or misinterpreting scripture.

 

[norwegen]

Nearly all of the change (progress) that has occurred in religion has happened as a direct result of the influence of secular society.

Would you like just a few examples of how you might be mistaken?

I could furnish a hundred or so more if you're not satisfied. In fact, since abolition to civil rights, the religious communities of America have been in the forefront of social change.

And even before abolition. In Colonial America, Christian churches were essentially the only places that slaves and Indians could enjoy some equality with others.

In the first century, even, Christians recognized the reality of slavery, the subjects of which Jesus extended salvation.

To don a biblical cloak - slave traders, Nazis, the Reverend Jimmy Jones - may be a clever ploy, but in the Christian world, the strong and the weak are the same; the lion lies down with the lamb.

The Christian church has never been monolithic and the church in the US was no different:

The word Southern in Southern Baptist Convention stems from it having been organized in 1845 at Augusta, Georgia, by Baptists in the Southern United States who split with northern Baptists over the issue of slavery, specifically whether Southern slave owners could serve as missionaries.​

There is so much material in the bible that you can find passages to support ANY position.

Ephesians 6:5 - Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would show to Christ.​

Indeed. Hence the maligning of a faith that absolutely cannot be pried from its intertwining with Western civilization.

 

[JoeB131]

Constantine and Licinius signed the Edict of Milan in 313, not 303.

And the saints were called Christians in Antioch, long before that.

Indeed, some false messiahs emerged during the Jewish revolts - ordinary men whose deaths mattered to the world not a whit.

You make up Christian history like you make up political history, and I am at this moment pissing in the wind.

I don't think you are responding to the right post, but the thing is, the only people making up Christian History are the ones who talk about a magic God man who walked on water. I'm just pointing out the silly inconsistencies. Just like I did when I was little and Sister Mary Butch used to hit me with a wooden ruler.

 

[alang1216]

Indeed. Hence the maligning of a faith that absolutely cannot be pried from its intertwining with Western civilization.

Yes. For good and for ill.

 

[alang1216]

I don't think Roman ignorance of local religions means very much. The Romans did decide the future of Christianity but it happened much earlier than Constantine. There were two opposing factions, the expat one, represented by Paul, and the Jerusalem faction headed by Jesus' brother James. Paul said you didn't need to be a Jew to be a Christian while James disagreed. Rome decided the debate in 70 AD when they sacked Jerusalem and killed the Christians there.

But did they really? here's the thing. If Christians were blamed for the Great Fire in Rome by Nero, as Christian tradition claims, then they should have been well known by Hadrian's time. It would be like if in 2040, everyone forgot who Al Qaeda was in America.

However, if you accept that Christianity didn't really start to form until Hadrian's time, and they created a lot back stories about Jesus and were still defining their faith stealing bits from Serapis and Mithras and other mythologies, then Hadrian (who was actually a really well-educated guy for his time period) being confused would make a lot more sense.

Anyone who knew Jewish law and tradition would never have made up the crucifixion. That ending was enough to convince Jews that Jesus could not be the messiah. The messiah was expected to be a great general or big-shot religious leader. Jesus was neither.

I agree. But that works on the assumption that Jesus was made up by Jews. He probably wasn't. Keep in mind, Mark's gospel was written first, and reading it, you can tell Mark isn't particularly well informed about Jewish law or tradition or even geography. Matthew tries to correct Mark's mistakes, by making up prophecies or misinterpreting scripture.

Was the Buddha, Mohammad, Zoroaster, and John Smith also made up? Every religion I know of started as a cult based on a real person. There was likely an Abraham and a Mosses but they are lost to history.

 

[norwegen]

Constantine and Licinius signed the Edict of Milan in 313, not 303.

And the saints were called Christians in Antioch, long before that.

Indeed, some false messiahs emerged during the Jewish revolts - ordinary men whose deaths mattered to the world not a whit.

You make up Christian history like you make up political history, and I am at this moment pissing in the wind.

I don't think you are responding to the right post, but the thing is, the only people making up Christian History are the ones who talk about a magic God man who walked on water. I'm just pointing out the silly inconsistencies. Just like I did when I was little and Sister Mary Butch used to hit me with a wooden ruler.

I responded to two posts at once.

You cannot know who's making up history when you yourself don't know it.

You have a single-minded purpose when discussing Christianity.

 

[Votto]

I'm not a fanatical inerrant kind of guy. Even inconsistencies can be seen in the OT, like who killed Goliath. (See Chronicles 20:5 and 2 Samuel 21:19) After all, the Bible does not claim to be inerrant, other people do.

I go by the overall message of the Bible that repeats, which is faith, hope, and love. There is also the general theme of a Messiah to come to save humanity. However, from an archeology perspective, the Bible is accurate enough to create a whole branch of archeology from which to draw information from. For example, scientists had no proof that the Philistines existed, but just went digging where the Bible said they were and found them. I believe everyone mentioned in the Bible to be historically real, and yes, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and God delivered them. I know of no other scientific discipline that was created from a religious text. Pretty impressive.

Having said that, I'm most impressed by two prophesies, Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9:24-27.

Reading Isaiah 53, you would probably be persuaded that the NT was written to match it word for word. Well that is all well and good except for one problem. Why would God seek to punish and "innocent and blameless" man?

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth


10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light and be satisfied
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Then there is Daniel 9. Here we have a calendar for the coming of the Messiah. Naturally, Christians calculate the calendar to the time of Christ as where those who don't believe dispute this. However, in the Talmud we see rabbis calculate the time and forbid people to calculate it because it points to the time of Jesus.

Further, rabbis are told that "Jesus tarries" because the time has already passed for the coming of their Messiah. Because they reject their Messiah, they reason that God simply changed his mind due to the sinfulness of Israel.

As for John being anti-Semitic, you are nuts.

I'm guessing you are easily swayed by fake news?
Isaiah 53 is not messianic & is PLURAL PAST TENSE not singular fiture tense. Context talks about Israel being the servent over 14 times in Isaiah. Israel became disfigured and despised, Jesus is written to be popular throughout the NT so are you saying the NT lies?
Daniel 9 is also not messianic.
The word in Isaiah is "an" anointed, not THE ANOINTED ONE. KINGS were anointed.


Placement of Jesus in Dan 9 is the earliest form of fake news=fake narative.

Let me explain Dan 9 so you see it revealed.
The events Daniel is prophecizing already occured before Jesus and the events of the temple you propose occured after Jesus making the correlation impossible even if you avoided history and thought it didn’t occur yet.
Daniel is talking about "an anointed place" and an anointed (King)
not THE ANOINTED ONE.
*notice word play deceptions to paint false placement*
Now to review why these events already occured:
Dan 9: There is a 7-week (49-year) span between the actual destruction of Jerusalem in 586 (beginning the exile and realizing the decree in 538bc to rebuild), and the end of the exile brought about by the arrival of ‘AN’ anointed one not “THE” anointed one . Kings and High Priests were anointed as AN anointed one but not THE anointed one. Thus we must notice the wording is “an anointed one” not “THE” anointed one.

Dan 9:24 says anoint the holy place not an anointed man. Daniel 9:25 says, "from the time the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem was issued, until AN annointed one, a ruler, it will be seven weeks". If the decree is indeed sometime around the beginning of the full Exile, 586 b.c.e., then who is the anointed one mentioned? And, GOD already has referred to ruler Cyrus as his Anointed in
Isaiah 45:1: 70 years after the destruction Cyrus rebuilt the Temple in other words it's completion in 516BC
Here's the reference of this ‘70 years’ by the Historian Josephus in Antiquities 11.1.1: Ant. 11.1.1 "In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they has served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that SERVITUDE seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity; and these things God did afford them."

Daniel 9:26
And after the sixty-two weeks,an anointed one will be cut off,
and there will be nothing to him.
and the people of a ruler who shall come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary,
and the end of it/him shall be with a flood,,
and, until the end of the war, desolations are decreed.

62 weeks (434 years) leads us to around 152 b.c.e. the time of antiochus desolation and destruction of the temple. The anointed one was the king who was cut off. High Priest Onias III, who was assasinated (cut off) in 171 b.c.e. In 168 b.c.e., the middle of the next "week" of years (171-165 b.c.e.), ruler Antiochus IV (who had Onias killed) pillaged Jerusalem. Antiochus IV matches the "ruler to come",

Furthermore if you ever read the commentary on Daniel and Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls the liberator &
HaSheva (redeemer) is already named as Michael (the Evening Star- rises
-Dan 12:1-4) thus Daniels Visions of the Night (Evening Star Shalem) is of son of man (Shalem)-Dan7:7, 7:13.

Conclusion: learn to discern "tenses",
least you be duped & played by people who manipulate words to change the narrative for sake of propaganda, like our tabloid news does today.

Fake news?

Most modern rabbis try to deny the messianic application of Daniel 9:24-27, however, it is well established that rabbis of old believed that this prophesy pinpointed the time of the coming of the Messiah. In fact, many in the Qumran community (the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls) believed that they were living in the very generation to which this prophesy pointed. (Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 1992 p.58)

In the Babylonian Talmud, compiled between A. D 200-500, ancient rabbis commented on the time of the Messiah's coming and Daniels seventy weeks prophecy.

Regarding the times referred to in Daniel's prophecy, Rabbi Judah, the main compiler of the Talmud, said: "These times were over long ago" (Babylonia Talmud Sanhedrin 98b and 97a

In the 12th century A. D., Rabbi Moses Ben Moimon (Maimonides), one of the most respected rabbis in history, and a man who rejected the messianic claims of Jesus of Nazareth, said regarding Daniel's seventy weeks prophecy: "Daniel has elucidated to us the knowledge of the end times. However, since they are secret, the wise have barred the calculation of the days of Messiah's coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the end times have already come but there is no sign of the Messiah" (Igeret Teiman, chapter 3 p. 24)

Finally, Rabbi Moses Abraham Levi said regarding the time of the Messiah's coming: "I have examined and searched all the Holy Scriptures and have not found the time for the coming of the Messiah clearly fixed, EXCEPT in the words of Gabriel to the prophet Daniel, which are written in the 9th chapter of the prophecy of Daniel." (The Messiah of the Targums, Talumuds and Rabbinical Writers, 1971)

There, references and all. Anyone who is seriously interested, and not here to troll, knock yourself out!

You did not refute the fact that it "is not" a messianic verse.
Furthermore it helps to know you proved my point and dating of the weeks leading to anointed high priest Onias lll and the desecration of the Temple*. The scrolls you discuss were written at that time period discussing that time period. The wicked Priest was one of King Jannaeus uncles.

Lastly using the Dead Sea Scroll argument totally destroys your Jesus claim, since the Scrolls Daniel and Isaiah commentary call Michael the Liberator and mention Jesus not once.
*History lesson:
High Priest Onias III, was assasinated (cut off) in 171 BCE. In 168 BCE, the middle of the next "week" of years (171-165 BCE), ruler Antiochus IV (who had Onias killed) pillaged Jerusalem. Antiochus IV matches the "ruler to come", and Daniel coninues to refer to his deeds in the middle of the week: - Dan 9:27- They (Romans) did cause the sacrifice to cease.

No, I just did.

Troll alert!

 

[JoeB131]

Was the Buddha, Mohammad, Zoroaster, and John Smith also made up? Every religion I know of started as a cult based on a real person. There was likely an Abraham and a Mosses but they are lost to history.

I think you are looking for "Joseph Smith".

Buddha and Zoroaster- possibly made up. Mohammed and Smith are documented contemporaneously, so they were real people.

 

[JoeB131]

I responded to two posts at once.

You cannot know who's making up history when you yourself don't know it.

You have a single-minded purpose when discussing Christianity.

I've got a degree in history, bud. That makes me an expert.

Yes, I do have a goal in discussing Christianity, which is to debunk it as the fraud it is.

 

[RWNJ]

Christians believe that Jesus "fulfilled" OT prophecy. But in fact it's not prophecy fulfilled but prophecy historicized after the fact. The "fulfilled prophecies" were retrojected into the gospel writers' stories in order to flesh out the Jesus character who they knew so little about. After all, these writers wrote decades after Jesus died, and knew almost nothing about him. In their zeal to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, they searched the Old Testament for anything (sometimes just phrases) that could possibly be construed as messianic prophecies, and then created or modified events in Jesus' life to fulfill those so-called prophecies.

How do we know that? How do we know that the stories weren't actual records of actual fulfillment of prophecy? Well, lots of reasons, but one, in particular, stands out, at least to me. It's sometimes referred to as "Matthew's big blunder", and this blunder, I'm afraid, gives the game away.

In the story of the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, Mark, Luke and John all say that Jesus entered the city riding on a donkey. But Matthew has Jesus enter the city straddling TWO animals, not one - a donkey AND a colt! Here's the passage in Matthew:

Matthew 21:1-7
Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, AND a colt with her. Loose THEM and bring THEM to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of THEM,’ and immediately he will send THEM.”

All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet [Zechariah], saying:

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey AND the colt, laid THEIR clothes on THEM, and set Him on THEM.

The reason Matthew has Jesus on TWO animals instead of one is that he misunderstood the prophecy (quoted above) to refer to two animals. But this is an error on his part [yes, an error. You can throw out any belief in “inerrancy” right here!] This is a common occurrence in the OT of something called a parallelism, where the same idea is stated twice with slightly different wording, but actually means the same thing. In this case the passage in Zechariah is NOT referring to two animals. The donkey and the colt represent the same animal, and the other gospel writers all understood this, which is why they had Jesus enter the city on a lone donkey. Matthew didn't get it though. He thought the Zechariah passage literally meant TWO animals, so that's what he put in his story. It’s rather comical when you to try to picture Jesus straddling two animals!

Stunt rider Jesus to the rescue!

What does this tell us? What conclusions can we draw from this?

Here’s what we can conclude:

1) Whoever wrote the gospel of Matthew could not possibly have been an eyewitness. If he was, he would have known that Jesus entered the city on just one donkey, as he would have seen it with his own eyes.

2) Not only was the author not a witness, but he did not get his information from anyone else who was a witness, for the same reason as above.

3) Since he was neither a witness nor an acquaintance of a witness, there is only one way he could have gotten his information – from his own imagination – with the help of the Old Testament! Of course, he got the story from Mark, but then he changed Mark’s version of the story in order to reflect what he thought it should say in order to make the prophecy come true. It is a conscious act of fraud in order to make the text fit his own personal opinion about what must have happened. It is prophecy fulfillment invented, not recorded, and this is most likely how all of the gospels were written.

There’s an old story that goes like this: “While traveling through a forest, a person noticed a circle marked on a tree with an arrow shot perfectly into the center. A few yards away he noticed several more targets, each with arrows in the center. Later, he met the talented archer and he asked him, "How did you become such an expert that you always get your arrows into the center of the bullseye?" "It's not difficult," responded the archer, "First I shoot the arrow and then I draw the circle."”


That’s how the gospels were written!


And Matthew's blunder, among other things, gives the game away.

Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?

Although Matthew says that two donkeys were fetched, his account is consistent with Jesus only riding on one of them: When Matthew says that Jesus "sat on them", he uses the plural not because he is describing Jesus straddling more than one donkey, but because he is describing Jesus sitting on the clothes that have been put on the donkeys, and Jesus could do this while sitting on only one donkey.

 

[HaShev]

I'm not a fanatical inerrant kind of guy. Even inconsistencies can be seen in the OT, like who killed Goliath. (See Chronicles 20:5 and 2 Samuel 21:19) After all, the Bible does not claim to be inerrant, other people do.

I go by the overall message of the Bible that repeats, which is faith, hope, and love. There is also the general theme of a Messiah to come to save humanity. However, from an archeology perspective, the Bible is accurate enough to create a whole branch of archeology from which to draw information from. For example, scientists had no proof that the Philistines existed, but just went digging where the Bible said they were and found them. I believe everyone mentioned in the Bible to be historically real, and yes, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and God delivered them. I know of no other scientific discipline that was created from a religious text. Pretty impressive.

Having said that, I'm most impressed by two prophesies, Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9:24-27.

Reading Isaiah 53, you would probably be persuaded that the NT was written to match it word for word. Well that is all well and good except for one problem. Why would God seek to punish and "innocent and blameless" man?

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth


10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light and be satisfied
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Then there is Daniel 9. Here we have a calendar for the coming of the Messiah. Naturally, Christians calculate the calendar to the time of Christ as where those who don't believe dispute this. However, in the Talmud we see rabbis calculate the time and forbid people to calculate it because it points to the time of Jesus.

Further, rabbis are told that "Jesus tarries" because the time has already passed for the coming of their Messiah. Because they reject their Messiah, they reason that God simply changed his mind due to the sinfulness of Israel.

As for John being anti-Semitic, you are nuts.

I'm guessing you are easily swayed by fake news?
Isaiah 53 is not messianic & is PLURAL PAST TENSE not singular fiture tense. Context talks about Israel being the servent over 14 times in Isaiah. Israel became disfigured and despised, Jesus is written to be popular throughout the NT so are you saying the NT lies?
Daniel 9 is also not messianic.
The word in Isaiah is "an" anointed, not THE ANOINTED ONE. KINGS were anointed.


Placement of Jesus in Dan 9 is the earliest form of fake news=fake narative.

Let me explain Dan 9 so you see it revealed.
The events Daniel is prophecizing already occured before Jesus and the events of the temple you propose occured after Jesus making the correlation impossible even if you avoided history and thought it didn’t occur yet.
Daniel is talking about "an anointed place" and an anointed (King)
not THE ANOINTED ONE.
*notice word play deceptions to paint false placement*
Now to review why these events already occured:
Dan 9: There is a 7-week (49-year) span between the actual destruction of Jerusalem in 586 (beginning the exile and realizing the decree in 538bc to rebuild), and the end of the exile brought about by the arrival of ‘AN’ anointed one not “THE” anointed one . Kings and High Priests were anointed as AN anointed one but not THE anointed one. Thus we must notice the wording is “an anointed one” not “THE” anointed one.

Dan 9:24 says anoint the holy place not an anointed man. Daniel 9:25 says, "from the time the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem was issued, until AN annointed one, a ruler, it will be seven weeks". If the decree is indeed sometime around the beginning of the full Exile, 586 b.c.e., then who is the anointed one mentioned? And, GOD already has referred to ruler Cyrus as his Anointed in
Isaiah 45:1: 70 years after the destruction Cyrus rebuilt the Temple in other words it's completion in 516BC
Here's the reference of this ‘70 years’ by the Historian Josephus in Antiquities 11.1.1: Ant. 11.1.1 "In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they has served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that SERVITUDE seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity; and these things God did afford them."

Daniel 9:26
And after the sixty-two weeks,an anointed one will be cut off,
and there will be nothing to him.
and the people of a ruler who shall come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary,
and the end of it/him shall be with a flood,,
and, until the end of the war, desolations are decreed.

62 weeks (434 years) leads us to around 152 b.c.e. the time of antiochus desolation and destruction of the temple. The anointed one was the king who was cut off. High Priest Onias III, who was assasinated (cut off) in 171 b.c.e. In 168 b.c.e., the middle of the next "week" of years (171-165 b.c.e.), ruler Antiochus IV (who had Onias killed) pillaged Jerusalem. Antiochus IV matches the "ruler to come",

Furthermore if you ever read the commentary on Daniel and Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls the liberator &
HaSheva (redeemer) is already named as Michael (the Evening Star- rises
-Dan 12:1-4) thus Daniels Visions of the Night (Evening Star Shalem) is of son of man (Shalem)-Dan7:7, 7:13.

Conclusion: learn to discern "tenses",
least you be duped & played by people who manipulate words to change the narrative for sake of propaganda, like our tabloid news does today.

Fake news?

Most modern rabbis try to deny the messianic application of Daniel 9:24-27, however, it is well established that rabbis of old believed that this prophesy pinpointed the time of the coming of the Messiah. In fact, many in the Qumran community (the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls) believed that they were living in the very generation to which this prophesy pointed. (Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov/Dec 1992 p.58)

In the Babylonian Talmud, compiled between A. D 200-500, ancient rabbis commented on the time of the Messiah's coming and Daniels seventy weeks prophecy.

Regarding the times referred to in Daniel's prophecy, Rabbi Judah, the main compiler of the Talmud, said: "These times were over long ago" (Babylonia Talmud Sanhedrin 98b and 97a

In the 12th century A. D., Rabbi Moses Ben Moimon (Maimonides), one of the most respected rabbis in history, and a man who rejected the messianic claims of Jesus of Nazareth, said regarding Daniel's seventy weeks prophecy: "Daniel has elucidated to us the knowledge of the end times. However, since they are secret, the wise have barred the calculation of the days of Messiah's coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the end times have already come but there is no sign of the Messiah" (Igeret Teiman, chapter 3 p. 24)

Finally, Rabbi Moses Abraham Levi said regarding the time of the Messiah's coming: "I have examined and searched all the Holy Scriptures and have not found the time for the coming of the Messiah clearly fixed, EXCEPT in the words of Gabriel to the prophet Daniel, which are written in the 9th chapter of the prophecy of Daniel." (The Messiah of the Targums, Talumuds and Rabbinical Writers, 1971)

There, references and all. Anyone who is seriously interested, and not here to troll, knock yourself out!

You did not refute the fact that it "is not" a messianic verse.
Furthermore it helps to know you proved my point and dating of the weeks leading to anointed high priest Onias lll and the desecration of the Temple*. The scrolls you discuss were written at that time period discussing that time period. The wicked Priest was one of King Jannaeus uncles.

Lastly using the Dead Sea Scroll argument totally destroys your Jesus claim, since the Scrolls Daniel and Isaiah commentary call Michael the Liberator and mention Jesus not once.
*History lesson:
High Priest Onias III, was assasinated (cut off) in 171 BCE. In 168 BCE, the middle of the next "week" of years (171-165 BCE), ruler Antiochus IV (who had Onias killed) pillaged Jerusalem. Antiochus IV matches the "ruler to come", and Daniel coninues to refer to his deeds in the middle of the week: - Dan 9:27- They (Romans) did cause the sacrifice to cease.

No, I just did.

Troll alert!

Calling sources trolling while all you reply with is ad hominem excuses and name calling is called deflection.
AKA you are that forum troll you so love to hate. Why does Christianity hate scholarly research, truth and reality, ask yourself that.
Truth needs no ad hominem gimic and folly, only a great lie does.
Why protect a lie?
=Affiliation pride.
HUMAN EGO 101

 

[godsandmen]

Christians believe that Jesus "fulfilled" OT prophecy. But in fact it's not prophecy fulfilled but prophecy historicized after the fact. The "fulfilled prophecies" were retrojected into the gospel writers' stories in order to flesh out the Jesus character who they knew so little about. After all, these writers wrote decades after Jesus died, and knew almost nothing about him. In their zeal to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, they searched the Old Testament for anything (sometimes just phrases) that could possibly be construed as messianic prophecies, and then created or modified events in Jesus' life to fulfill those so-called prophecies.

How do we know that? How do we know that the stories weren't actual records of actual fulfillment of prophecy? Well, lots of reasons, but one, in particular, stands out, at least to me. It's sometimes referred to as "Matthew's big blunder", and this blunder, I'm afraid, gives the game away.

In the story of the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, Mark, Luke and John all say that Jesus entered the city riding on a donkey. But Matthew has Jesus enter the city straddling TWO animals, not one - a donkey AND a colt! Here's the passage in Matthew:

Matthew 21:1-7
Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, AND a colt with her. Loose THEM and bring THEM to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of THEM,’ and immediately he will send THEM.”

All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet [Zechariah], saying:

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey AND the colt, laid THEIR clothes on THEM, and set Him on THEM.

The reason Matthew has Jesus on TWO animals instead of one is that he misunderstood the prophecy (quoted above) to refer to two animals. But this is an error on his part [yes, an error. You can throw out any belief in “inerrancy” right here!] This is a common occurrence in the OT of something called a parallelism, where the same idea is stated twice with slightly different wording, but actually means the same thing. In this case the passage in Zechariah is NOT referring to two animals. The donkey and the colt represent the same animal, and the other gospel writers all understood this, which is why they had Jesus enter the city on a lone donkey. Matthew didn't get it though. He thought the Zechariah passage literally meant TWO animals, so that's what he put in his story. It’s rather comical when you to try to picture Jesus straddling two animals!

Stunt rider Jesus to the rescue!

What does this tell us? What conclusions can we draw from this?

Here’s what we can conclude:

1) Whoever wrote the gospel of Matthew could not possibly have been an eyewitness. If he was, he would have known that Jesus entered the city on just one donkey, as he would have seen it with his own eyes.

2) Not only was the author not a witness, but he did not get his information from anyone else who was a witness, for the same reason as above.

3) Since he was neither a witness nor an acquaintance of a witness, there is only one way he could have gotten his information – from his own imagination – with the help of the Old Testament! Of course, he got the story from Mark, but then he changed Mark’s version of the story in order to reflect what he thought it should say in order to make the prophecy come true. It is a conscious act of fraud in order to make the text fit his own personal opinion about what must have happened. It is prophecy fulfillment invented, not recorded, and this is most likely how all of the gospels were written.

There’s an old story that goes like this: “While traveling through a forest, a person noticed a circle marked on a tree with an arrow shot perfectly into the center. A few yards away he noticed several more targets, each with arrows in the center. Later, he met the talented archer and he asked him, "How did you become such an expert that you always get your arrows into the center of the bullseye?" "It's not difficult," responded the archer, "First I shoot the arrow and then I draw the circle."”


That’s how the gospels were written!


And Matthew's blunder, among other things, gives the game away.

Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?

Although Matthew says that two donkeys were fetched, his account is consistent with Jesus only riding on one of them: When Matthew says that Jesus "sat on them", he uses the plural not because he is describing Jesus straddling more than one donkey, but because he is describing Jesus sitting on the clothes that have been put on the donkeys, and Jesus could do this while sitting on only one donkey.

So that's how your apologetics websites try to weasel out of it huh? No, he was straddling two animals. Nice try though.

 

[fncceo]

Just to be clear ... are there currently any xtians who keep slaves and use their scriptures to justify it? For that matter, any Jews either?

From a historical perspective, there were more calls for the abolition of slavery coming from the pulpit than from any other segment of society.

Could it be that religions, like morality, evolve along with society?

No, dude, that's a copout.

Either you think the Bible is the unerring word of God, which means you should be enslaving your neighbors and stoning your daughters, or you don't.

Instead what you fundy morons do is pick and choose the things you like.

I'm not a fundamentalist. I'm not even a xtian. Another thing I'm not is someone who claims to know what everyone should or should not believe.

 

[Dale Smith]

I responded to two posts at once.

You cannot know who's making up history when you yourself don't know it.

You have a single-minded purpose when discussing Christianity.

I've got a degree in history, bud. That makes me an expert.

Yes, I do have a goal in discussing Christianity, which is to debunk it as the fraud it is.

History taught by whom, Slow Joe?? LMAO! You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

 

[JoeB131]

History taught by whom, Slow Joe?? LMAO! You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Well, true, my school didn't teach us anything about the Trilateralist, Bilderberger, Illuminati Lizard People who are making your life miserable... you totally got me there, Mr. Crazy Person.

 

[Picaro]

I responded to two posts at once.

You cannot know who's making up history when you yourself don't know it.

You have a single-minded purpose when discussing Christianity.

I've got a degree in history, bud. That makes me an expert.

Yes, I do have a goal in discussing Christianity, which is to debunk it as the fraud it is.

History taught by whom, Slow Joe?? LMAO! You don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Well, he's certainly a lousy troll, for sure; denying the obvious is pretty stupid these days, as is not even doing basic Google Scholaring on well documented subjects. But some still think 'Posting Last!!!' is 'Winning!!!', so you just have to mock them instead of trying to have real discussions with such spammers.