Posted on 03/01/2007 8:30:44 PM PST by blasater1960
Unfortunately, I believe this is the Case.
R&B is strange. In one breath they demand the restitution of the Biblical sacrificial service, contrary to all the inanities of modern thought. But then they sponsor talks by uncoverted moslems and chr*stians (and by members of an outfit called the Transnational Radical Party) and have radical, higher-critical chr*stians like Hans Kung on their board of advisors. Can you think of anything that makes less sense than a radical leftist "higher critical" Catholic serving as an advisor to an organization that advocates the restitution of Biblical sacrifices???
But despite everything, the real Sanhedrion will be reestablished when G-d wills. May this happen immediately!
"If anything, the Antichrist should preside over them.
By the way, I'd *love* to see some Biblical support for your ideas.... "
some saints have alluded to this idea - that the antichrist would sit in the temple and preside over the sacrifices and convince the jews he is the messiah.
He would then win over many christians as well.
time will tell I suppose.
You are of course 100% correct but, as I have explained in an earlier response, the people you are arguing with (who are well-meaning) simply will not listen to you. They know that 'Adam was created as perfect as G-d Himself, and that G-d can't handle imperfection of any kind without damning it. When Adam sinned, he thus damned all future generations of mankind for imperfection. It doesn't matter that everyone is different and some people are more sinful than others and some are less sinful than others. G-d cannot individually reward/punish sins and good deeds because He can't handle the imperfection Adam's sin introduced into humanity. Sin is essentially a disease, individual sins are merely the symptoms. Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin both deserve the identical same eternal damnation because they both had the same disease--the fact that one had more symptoms than another means nothing.
Because they begin their reading of the TaNa"KH with a "new testament" perspective they interpret the entire Torah as a combination stop-gap and prophecy of the coming "messiah" who was vicariously damned in the place of every single human being who would ever live, thus allowing G-d to maintain His Holiness (which demanded eternal damnation for the imperfection introduced by sin) while showing mercy to his creatures.
It is important to remember that this view represents only Fundamentalist Protestantism, not Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. To a Fundamentalist Protestant, both Catholicism and Orthodoxy are barren legal systems of no merit or use (they merely replace HaShem with (lehavdil!) J*sus as the object of their prayers for mercy). This means that Fundamentalist Protestantism cannot be genuine chr*stianity because it has no roots or connections to the ancient chr*stian past. It also means that Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are hypocritical because they basically take the same attitude as Judaism, except they replace the Holy Torah with a "new law" and HaShem with (lehavdil!) J*sus.
Some people who argue with Protestants make the great mistake of sounding as if they are promoting the idea that man is not sinful, or that there is nothing wrong with us. The good Protestant, obviously, knows that there is very much wrong with him, and thus is confirmed even more in his erroneous beliefs. It is not that there isn't anything wrong with us (Adam's sin marred the entire creation, not merely human nature), but this does not mean that G-d can only react to this by damning someone (either the victim or the scapegoat). Nothing G-d created shares His Holiness or perfection. Indeed, each year on Ro'sh HaShanah G-d judges all created things, including even the Heavenly bodies, because they are not perfect, but this doesn't mean they have to be condemned to eternal damnation. Before man had even been created the earth already sinned by disobeying G-d and bringing forth "`etz `oseh peri instead of `etz peri `oseh peri (where was Satan while this was going on?), yet while it was punished, that doesn't mean the earth had to be eternally damned! Fundamentalist Protestants also don't seem to understand that evil, rather than the creation of a fallen and rebellious angel, was mysteriously a part of G-d's plan all along (He created both Satan and the evil inclination).
In order to break out of this mentality the chr*stian must read the TaNa"KH without any chr*stian preconceptions, which for some people is very hard. So by all means continue to defend the Torah, but please also understand why it is so difficult for them to understand.
I once believed exactly as they do, and probably were it not for my own unique experiences I'd still believe it.
"You forgot about the red heiffer. A rancher in Texas has been contracted to create a breed of unblemished red heiffers and has been successful in doing so, although the location of the ranch has been kept secret for fears of reprisals by Israel's enemies."
Yep.
The joke is that West Texas was picked because it looks exactly like Israel (which is true --- spent a lot of time in both, and basically identical.)
Perhaps it is because the target audience of most of the New Testament was Jews and that the writers of those scriptures were pretty effective in converting Jews to Christianity. (Why reinvent the wheel?)
Matthew wrote his gospel for Jewish Christians and Jews who were familiar with the Old Testament, that they may know Jesus was the Messianic King foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is evident this was the case, because Matthew's gospel contains more quotations of and allusions to the Old Testament than any other book of the New Testament.Source http://www.lifeofchrist.com/life/gospels/print.asp Gospels at a Glance
This chart shows some of the unique characteristics and key differences between the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Writing Matthew Mark Luke John Audience Jews Romans Greeks Gentile Christians Author Tax collector and apostle. Also known as "Levi." Missionary with Barnabus and Paul. Called a son by Peter. Greek doctor who travelled with Paul. Wrote Acts as sequel. Fisherman, apostle, and elder. Wrote 5 NT books. Died at an old age. Date Written 37-68 A.D.
Probably written after Mark.40-65 A.D.
Probably the 1st gospel written.59-61 A.D.
Probably written after Mark and Matthew. (Luke 1:1-3)80-98 A.D.
The last gospel written.
Content Matthew Mark Luke John Depiction of Jesus King of the Jews Powerful Servant of God Perfect Savior of Man Son of God Key Words Kingdom, Fulfill Immediately, Authority Son of Man Believe, Life, World, Father, Son Key Verse Matthew 27:37 Mark 10:45 Luke 19:10 John 3:16 Characteristics Evidence to prove Jesus was the promised Messiah. Fast paced and visual. Careful and historical. The gospel of belief.
PETA will be upset :)
Me, I'm a simple guy. As a fairly obervant Jew I mourn for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and pray for its restoration. The purpose of its restoration, as far as I can tell, is to enable us to reinstitute the sacrifices that according to Jewish law can take place only there and nowhere else. For us Jews, the three daily prayer services are a surrogate for the sacrifices that we long to have restored speedily and within our days.
I imagine that part of the reason that General Moshe Dayan of Israel gave the keys to the Temple Mount to the Muslim Mufti of Jerusalem after it was liberated in 1967 was to prevent religious Jews from pushing for restoration of Jewish obligations on the Temple Mount. For some of us, this act was the worst ever done by the Israeli government -- even worse than the destruction of the Jewish communities of Gaza and the surrender of most of Hevron to the Palestinian Authority.
It's funny -- when I google the term "insanehedrin", there are only nine reference that show up. Only one of them is from 2005 on Free Republic, and it's by you.
I don't think that this neologism is in common uage by any stretch of the imagination. Those members of the Sanhedrin of today who have been identified are leading Orthodox Rabbis, not part of any fringe group of Judaism. Some of them, such as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, are full participants in the "modern" world, despite being quite observant.
AMEN!!!
It's that easy huh?
ping
Are you telling me they created a live 'red' cow to be sacrificed?
Flawless red hefers are being bred for whatever purpose anyone wants to do with them, yes. Very careful genetic screening to make sure there are no latent stray hairs.
No different that breeding for any other color or other requisites.
I have bred black cows for some fashion designer who wanted flawless hides that stood up to black lights of dance floors.
Similarly, I have a field with no barbed wire or sticky things of any kind where I breed cattle that is sold to an Italian car manufacturer ---- can't have barbed wire or cactus because they make knots on the skin. People with $350K cars wants smooth flawless under-belly hides.
Fajitas or bathing in ashes makes no difference to me.
Backing up (and not thinking about NOW, instead of then as I did in my last post), I suppose the Red Heffer would legally be needed to un-do what Titus did to the Temple Mount, assuming continued application of the Law of Moses.
Above my pay grade to opine, though.
I don't think you can put "fundamentalist Protestants" all in the same boat. There are two main divisions of theology in classical (non-Lutheran) American Protestantism, Covenant Theology, and Dispensationalist Theology.
Both systems rely on free grace given by God, through the life, work, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, however, Covenant theology draws closer parallels with ancient Judaism--saying God's people have always been saved by grace, from Adam, to the present day. Law keeping and good deeds are understood as the result, not the grounds, of forgiveness.
It seems entirely logical that pharisaic rabbinic Judaism (the branch from which modern Judaism came) would, since it has not had sacrifices for 2000 years, very much de-emphasize their place in Jewish religious practice. After all, since the Temple system is gone, the focus must be on other aspects of Judaism--namely the law of God.
However, until the exile into Babylon, EVERY generation of Jews, going back to Abraham...or really Noah and before...had blood sacrifices as central to their religion.
Given the Levitical regulations, and the centrality of the Temple, with its enormous altar (used many times a day for offering blood sacrifices), it seems nonsensical to argue that blood sacrifice had nothing at all to do with the forgiveness of sins in ancient Judaism. Also the yearly Day of Atonement--when sacrifices were made on behalf of the entire nation, and also the one day of the year when the High Priest could enter the Holiest Place before the Ark in the center of the Temple--would definitely seem to indicate that blood atonement is central to ancient Jewish belief.
The New Testament argues too that blood sacrifice in and of itself, did not affect forgiveness of sin. God in His mercy did that.... However, the argument then follows that the whole sacrificial system pointed ahead to a better way which actually did fully cleanse from all sin, that in the person and work of Jesus.
As to why these divergent views, Christian ignorance and intransigence? I would suggest an alternative explanation:
Christianity, with its centrality of an idea of atonement for sin (in the self-sacrifice of the Messiah), follows in the way of one branch of ancient Judaism.
Modern Judaism, with its emphasis of law-keeping and good works as the basis of salvation, follows another branch of ancient Judaism.
Covenantal Protestantism also regards as nonsense your description of: "G-d cannot individually reward/punish sins and good deeds because He can't handle the imperfection Adam's sin introduced into humanity. Sin is essentially a disease, individual sins are merely the symptoms. Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin both deserve the identical same eternal damnation because they both had the same disease..."
Every sin demands separation from God, however, greater sinners, like the monsters Stalin or Hitler, deserve greater punishment. Individual sins and good deeds are definitely punished and/or rewarded. Jesus taught that, and so does biblical Christianity. Since God came and lived here in the person of Jesus Christ too, of course He can "handle imperfection." It's those who sin though, who cannot handle God's holiness. On what basis, or foundation, though, can anyone who sins (which is everyone) stand before a holy God?
Mother Theresa doesn't "deserve" Hell. Why? Because she trusted and loved God, and His way of salvation. Mother Theresa's loving life and attitude though, came FROM her trust in Jesus' love, and Jesus Himself in His mercy, not her good deeds, is the reason she will be in Heaven.
Yes, Christians read the Tanak in light of the New Testament--the great majority of books in it, by the way, composed by Jews. If Messiah has really come, then it would be a sin to try to understand the Tanak in any other way.
Since Christians do indeed however read and study the Old Testament, before trying to discuss Judaism, it would only seem logical and fair that before Jews try to critique Christianity, they read and study the New Testament.
Never knew that......thanks.
Hashem (G-D) provides three way of obtaining forgiveness. Sacrifice (many types of), Prayer and Charity. Nowhere does it say that Human sacrifice is permited (Jesus). The blood sacrifice for the remission of sins in the NT book of Hebrews is a misunderstanding of the Tanach. The prohibition of eating blood is what the Tanach is saying. The man from Nazareth is not an animal and therefore can not be sacrificed.
5 But he was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed.
Wounded, not pierced.
Cant be Jesus because in a couple of verse later....Isaiah 53:10
Yet it pleased HaShem to crush him by disease; to see if his soul would offer itself in restitution, that he might see his seed, prolong his days, and that the purpose of HaShem might prosper by his hand:
Jesus did not have children, died young.
Artscroll is actually better than this
On another note, wait till PETA hears about this.
Yes, He is. But because He became the Lamb, there is no longer any need for animal sacrifice.
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