>> “If you read the entirety of what I wrote (which I have copied below), you will see I came to the conclusion that the woman is NOT Israel.” <<
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Yes, the woman is Israel.
You have to accept that the person Mary is of no significance whatsoever. She will not be crowned Queen, because there is no queen.
All reference to a “Queen of Heaven” is the pagan myth of Semiramis/Ishtar/Easter, because that was what Constantine strove to put in place of Yeshua. You can read about this in the prophets if you are interested.
Every time that Mary and her children are mentioned in the Gospels, Yeshua goes out of his way to show that they are of no more importance to him than any of his followers are. This is something that you cannot deny.
What Revelation 12 speaks about is completely genetic Israel, and nothing else. The 144000 are the symbol of the remnant of Israel that remained true to his commandments.
In the gospel of Matthew, Yeshua makes it clear that he came to save the portion of Israel that were dispersed through the world, and out of covenant, and really nobody else, but then in the same passage makes it clear that he will be saving others that join Israel.
The entire Bible is about Yeshua and his people (Israel).
Nothing in the Bible is about Mary. Even the part that mentions her, is about her son, not her. She is mother only to those children to whom she gave birth. Her virginity was important only WRT Yeshua, and it is made clear that after his birth, she and Joseph had other children by the normal biological process. The gospel says clearly that Joseph “knew” her, a direct reference to sexual intercourse. This was put in the gospel specifically to establish that she did not remain a virgin.
There is way too much scripture establishing these facts for anyone to even attempt to refute them.
Everything that is presented in the NT had already been presented in the ancient scriptures. That is why almost every time Yeshua said anything, he preceded it with “it is written.”
He did not come to bring anything new. Even his sinless blood was previously prophesied. Even his remarriage to the House of Israel, the “mystery” Paul mentioned in Romans 7, was prophesied in Hosea.
Small wonder that literalists don’t treat Jesus’s declaration that he “did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” as a command to rush off and polish their rapiers like Muslims who believe in Sharia Law.
The truth is literalists resort to context, the oral tradition of linguistic phrases such as interpreting the phrase to forgive “seventy-times seven” not as an arithmetical 490 times but as a never-ending infinity as confirmed by the then customary usage of that phrase, only serves to display the serious if not inherently contradictory modes of their scriptural interpretation.
Naturally, having denied Petrine authority, their beliefs collapse into an abyss of several thousand sects and sub-sects that range from the Billy Grahams and “prosperity gospel’s” Joel Osteens to the Jim Jones and David Koresh. Truth be told, every corner street self appointed pastor preaches and practices his or her own brand of “Christianity” that on the same street one may not be surprised to find three different interpretations of scripture emanating from evangelical churches that include the acceptance of gay bishops to snake handlers, all claiming literal scriptural authority.
To be sure, Evangelical Christianity as part of the so-called “Great Second Awakening” is at most discredited to a historical footnote of interest in the theological departments of major universities. Today this absurdity is relegated to beliefs embraced by the same type of crowd that attends an Oprah Lolapalooza. More a form of soapy song and dance entertainment interspersed with a pounding oration from cartoonish “Bishop” TD Jakes to carnival-themed born-again baptisms by Rick Warren.
Today no reputable theology department of any university dares instruct on such vapid nonsense as literalism or born-again stuff. The reason is clear. It allows for unrestrained free wheeling, the very antithesis of a studied inquiry into ONE truth for ALL times by the ONE Church Christ formed. Petrine authority is not only validated by a stellar body of Catholic intellectual thought but more recently even by some of the leading proponents of Protestants who converted to Catholicism.
This is not about name-dropping like in a neighborhood social club. Rather, it shows how scholarly and serious minds have spent all their adult lives studying all of scripture and have validate Petrine authority. The rest is all low-information “street-theology” mush with differences only in degrees between the Rev. Jeremiah Wrights and the Billy Grahams of this world. A world of Biblical anarchy.