Posted on 03/04/2023 5:33:00 PM PST by Jonty30
God is Spirit and can become incarnate as flesh and dwell among us. Heck He made physics. He is Spirit that is far more real that Physical. The entire field of metaphysical reality comes from God in every aspect. He is not merely a thing in the created universe.
What the New Testament and the Torah says is that God could become a man and dwell with us. It happened when God visited Abraham as a man and ate with him and told him that Sarah would give birth to a son when Sarah laughed etc. In the New Testament it happened for a longer time all the way from conception to Resurrection in the person of Jesus. (Possibly it happened when God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden if that part is to be taken literally, but there is not question that the Abraham visit is to be. Quite possibly it happened in the Tent of Meeting where Moses is said to have talked face to face with the LORD...but again the most clear case is with Abraham and Sarah because the LORD stayed for a while and had a meal and was referred to as a man).
The exact nature of the Trinity is something that can be learned of from not just the New Testament but from the Torah and the rest of the Tanakh. It is not something explicitly stated in them but a theory about what God is like based on a careful study of them. The idea that there was a conflict with this theory and the Torah was a late invention that came out of arguments about whether Jesus was really the Messiah. These late ideas include conflicts with not just the New Testament but also the Tanakh including the Torah.
Yes we agree that God is not a mere mortal man.
Also if you respect the Torah as scripture as I do you are obliged to agree with me that God can walk the Earth as a man and get invited into the tent of Abraham and be fed bread and meat and milk and while eating with Abraham say that he in Sarah will have a son.
When God spoke face to face with Moshe in the house of meeting it was not explicit that God was incarnate as a man but it was explicit that God was speaking face to face with Moshi in a tent. But in the case of Abraham it was explicit that one of the three men was the LORD.
So if we are not going to throw out the Torah we need to reconcile these two datum. The Trinity does that. God is not merely a man like us. Nor is He merely a cloud, nor merely a fire. Nor merely whatever He mode He appeared to Moshe in the Tent of Meeting as. Nor merely what He appeared on the Mountain as when He gave Moshe the Law.
Take your pick:
1) The Torah was wrong about God visiting with Abraham as a man.
2) Somehow the Torah doesn't really say that God visited Abraham as a man.
3) God DID visit Abraham as a man, golly guess that contradicts what Moshe said about God not being a mortal man.
4) God DID visit Abraham as a man but it does not contradict what Moshe said about God not being a mortal man.
Seems to me 2 is not supportable. 1 and 3 require contradicting the Torah, and 4 is the only way an honest student of the Torah can proceed.
Bottom line: by definition, God can do whatever He pleases.
He surely can!
How utterly ridiculous. You are still operating by definitions of YOUR religion, not Judaism. So your premise is utterly faulty, and your "truth" is not applicable. We don't hold with "personhood" of angels, etc.
Sure...but with that caveat that there is the confusion about the Omnipotence of God that I think worth clarifying. One is that there are certainly things He would not do even though He has the power to, but I think you cover that when you say "he pleases". However there is the question about doing something that is logically incoherent. I think CS Lewis explained this issue rather well:
“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.' It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.” --CS Lewis, "The Problem of Pain"
The Christian Scriptures are Jewish including the New Testament. The Christians that made the "One For Israel" video which was posted are Jewish.
While certainly most Christians are us Gentiles, there is nothing Gentile about the New Testament scriptures or Jesus and His Disciples. They were all devout practicing Jews.
Wrong. They most certainly are NOT "devout practicing Jews" if they believe in J.C. He is not any part of the Jewish religion. Only for messyonics, most of whom are not Jewish anyway. And the "new" Testament has NOTHING to do with Judaism. I don't know who told you it was, but they don't knw what they're talking about.
Sorry, you are simply factually wrong. On any view that is not completely ignorant of the basic facts Jesus was a Jew.
Yahweh has a council.
Wrong again. My neighbor is a Catholic. That doesn't make him the Pope. J.C. may have been born a Jew, but that certainly does not confer any special authority to him to rewrite Jewish law or scripture.
Well in order to claim you were right you moved the goal posts from whether he and his followers were practicing Jews.
At issue is whether or not his teachings were correct and whether He was indeed God Incarnate and the the Suffering Servant version of the Messiah. The fact that He was Jewish is not really a live issue, obviously he was.
Now you bring up an interesting question about what it takes to "rewrite Jewish law". What about the Oral Torah? What about the Talmud? It is certainly no fault of an orthodox Jew that a great many of the requirements of the Law are now impossible without the Temple.
There was of course a time before the Law of Moses was delivered. Abraham did not offer sacrifices in the Temple. Certainly though Abraham was Jewish. Melchizedeck the King of Salem and Priest of Almighty God, who Abraham gave 10% of his wealth to, was a Gentile--both served God though.
Now however, who can follow the Law of Moses, and in particular the statues that require the Temple? Judiasm to go forward had to change its religious practices. The two competing guides are the New Testament and the Talmud. The New Testant is not just for Jews but is Good News to the Gentiles away, but it is absolutely just as Jewish as the Talmud. It anticipated beforehand that the Temple would be destroyed and put the new Covenant in place beforehand. After a very brave and noble defense of the Jerusalem against the evil Roman occupiers the Temple sadly fell in 70AD. So the age of Second Temple Judaism came to an end, and a new kind of Rabbinic Judaism formed over time to take its place--largely from what I can tell (I am by no means an expert on it, by Rabbis debating how to proceed in the current circumstances). But to be exacting...they could NOT follow the actual Law of Moses fully. They had to adapt it.
By your standards then perhaps one could argue that those that follow Rabbinic Judaism are not real Jews. I do NOT adopt this standard and think it unjust and uncharitable--particularly in light of the very real persecution that Jews have suffered (much at the hands of people claiming they were following Jesus by doing so).
But as much sympathy as I have for what Jews have suffered, I can not escape noticing they at least "reworked" the Law of Moses, and they added quite a bit to it. Jesus himself was very outspoken and critical about people that added to God's law with mere human judgement.
Bottom line now though is NOBODY at all is fully obeying the Law of Moses. Even those that really would like to. God has allowed it to be that way for 2000 years. Now if Jesus was really God and the Messiah and a "Prophet like Moses" (who brought Jews the first Covenant with God) then his bringing the message of a New Covenant makes perfect sense. I am not sure I can make as much sense about what God is doing on the premise that Jesus was a false prophet and not the Messiah at all. Perhaps you can help me out on making sense of this possibility. Did God authorize a new Covenant through inspiration of the Talmud on your view?
What gives you special authority to refer to the Son of God as, “J.C.”? So much for the Judeo/Christian ethic, eh? It’s “Jesus Christ” to you Bucko. And bow your head when you say it,….or don’t say it. Who are you to speak of what authority Jesus Christ may or may not have? Your Scripture is all about the coming of Jesus Christ. Have you read the gospels? Have you read the new books of the Bible?
From one Jew to another Jew in 50AD:
“and that from infancy you have known [the] sacred scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
2Tim 3:16
YOU, puny nobody, do not dictate to me what I choose to call this entity of which you speak. Nor do you dictate my behavior. He is not a deity to me. Only G-d has that position, and it is not shared by anyone or anything. The Torah does not mention any coming of any J.C., so you can cut that baloney out right now. I have no reason to read YOUR gospels, as they are not in any way a part of my religion. Ditto your books you’ve tacked on to the Five Books of Moses. So stuff your word salad. You might as well be pushing Hinduism, Shinto, Islam, or be a Pastafarian. If it’s not part of Torah Judaism, I am not interested. It has no bearing in my life. Might be a part of your life, but don’t try to push it on me. I’m not buying.
Who do you think you are fooling? You have totally bought into it. Hence you’re dissing the “messyonic” “J.C.” Tell you what, you stay in your dead-end lane and stay out of mine. Without your having read my Gospels, please do not comment on them.
You really should consider going into writing science fiction. These are outright lies you are trying to pass off to gullible uneducated people as truth. Your Scriptures are not Jewish. EOS.
I don't need to read your Gospels to know that they are not a part of Judaism as you falsely claim. YOU invaded MY lane when you go around spreading lies about my religion. Actual Jews have ONE G-d, and He has no sons, wife, consort, etc. You want to attribute other qualities, that's not Judaism and you're on your own. Feel free to follow any religion you choose, but DO NOT say that it's Judaism with all your additions.
Presuming this was not some kind of silly trolling and an honest mistake, my last response to you was comment 52 above.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.