Yes it is. taste my own medicine. Thank you. :)
The most prominent example that spring to mind is the quotation that Christ himself used to silence the Pharisees: "... the Lord said unto my Lord..."
I am glad you mentioned this example, because preceding that quote Jesus asks who do they think the Messiah is a son of? And they answer: David. This is so in line with Judaic understanding of the meshiach, the "anointed" warrior king of Israel. It shows that Judaism of Christ's time on earth has not changed. So, what do you think Moses and Elijah would have answered?
What did +Thomas say and became famous for? Did the myrrth bearing women not doubt? Were they not asked why there were looking for the dead among the living? They didn't come to anoint a living body they believed would resurrect but a dead one! If all the miracles He performed in the Gospels really happened, they would have expected Him to be up and alive! Yet no one, not one really believed and it took +Thomas to put his fingers into His wounds to believe and say "My Lord and my God."
The whole cascade of Christian tidal wave started after they all realized that He is indeed Risen! And that all this was, despite their doubts, really true! What a rush! But until that time, everyone doubted. Mary did not come tell the disciples "Don't worry, He'll be up and about..."
As for your quote, obviously the one who is anointed by God to be the king is a Lord of a LORD. But it does not mean that he is divine. Stretching, as I said.
This can also be seen in the Hebrew expression the "World to Come." The Christians converted it into the Kingdom of Heaven, but to the Jews it means the world after the meshiach established peace on earth, rebuilt Jerusalem, and converted everyone to the God of Abraham, all in real time and physically on this earth.
Now, we could say the Jews has "sporoi" or "seeds" of truth (as most religions on earth do) and did not understand their own revelations, that much I will grant, but to say that observant Jews whether they were Patriarchs or Prophets believed what we believe in is a bit of a stretch.
In that case we need to re-establish communion with the Catholic Church immediately by stretching the theology a wee bit. If Christianity and Judaism are one and the same faith, certainly Catholicism and Orthodoxy are!
As to whether Moses and Elijah would have recognized Christ on earth is a speculation. We presume they would. But we really don't know. Salvation in Orthodoxy is not achieved by recognition of the faith, but by becoming Christ-like, which is why all of them, including John the Baptist had to be rescued from Hell, because none of them were Christlike, where they? After all, Moses committed a murder by killing an Egyptian in revenge.
I know, we are here going about semantics, but if they were not in hell strictly speaking but "only" in Hades (I do remember that icon with the gates of Hell knocked down into a cross though) and were destined to go to heaven, why were they not in heaven to begin with? Come on, Agrarian, Orthodox belief as to what happens after one dies is well known to you: you are immediately judged and you go to the Hades where you foretaste the bliss of heaven or damnation of hell.
The "discomfort" people feel in the Hades regardless of their destiny is because souls are separated from their bodies (which is an unnatural state) and attached to unrepeated sin; they are then comforted with our panekhidas and purified in that way because they cannot repent themselves any more. The truly righteous go to heaven and need not be pulled out of the Hades as a special favor.
The only Old Testament righteous person we know who for sure recognized Christ was St. John the Baptist, and even he had to be rescued pronto. And what about our Ancestral Parents, Adam and Eve. Did they ever repent? Last time I checked, God gave them a chance to repent in the Garden and they failed and started this whole mess. They, too, were pulled out of the Hades.
Stretching, dear brother, is an understatement. The Jews do not believe they should love their enemies. Did Moses? Did David? Jews do not believe that they should turn the other cheek and never return evil for evil. Did Moses? Did David? Jews do not teach that blessed are those who are poor in spirit.n Did Moses? Did David?
That is uniquely Christian, unprecedented in Judaism, unknown to Judaism. How can it be one and the same religion? I have never heard that Moses or David or any of the righteous OT Jews preached or believed anything like that. So, if it was unknown to Judaism it was new, a new religion. What the Pharisees saw and heard was Jewish "Protestantism." Just as we say "where are you coming from? We have known this for 2,000 years and now you are telling us we were wrong all this time?" So did the Pharisees. And for that they were called the sons of the devil. I am sure if Jesus wanted to soften their hearts he could have and would have, but He didn't. And that's an altogether different topic!
Think about it: if we had an individual who told us all our beliefs were false and that he was the son of God in flesh we would put him in a mental institution, and some Evangelist might even kill him.
I jumped into this thread to make some comments about the Gnostic "Gospels" and their relationship to the New Testament writings (seemingly unnecessarily.)
With regard to the argument of continuity vs. discontinuity of Old and New Testament, Kosta and I have hashed this one out in great detail in the past and I see no need to bore the thread with continued reiterations of our respective views, since neither of us is going to convince the other (nor is agreement necessary). I will make a few comments, and then give Kosta the last word in this particular exchange.
First, I have never said that Judaism as we think of it today (or even as the Christian apologists of the early centuries thought of it) and Christianity are the same faith. One couldn't read the New Testament and come away with that idea. What I have stated is the rather unremarkable assertion that the Church viewed and views itself as in direct continuity with the faith of the Patriarchs and Prophets. Or, as Annalex has put it (quoting Catholic apologists), that Christianity is, at root, Messianic Judaism. One can disagree with this with as many permutations as desired, but I find it hard to see any other self-understanding in evidence in the New Testament or the patristic writings.
Second, in the Beatitudes, Christ is quoting or paraphrasing Old Testament passages in pretty much every case.
St. John Chrysostom gives, as OT sources for Christ's "blessed are the poor in spirit" the LXX texts of Isaiah 66:2, Psalm 50:17, and vs 16 of the Song of the Three Children.
For "blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth", he points out that this is a direct quotation from Psalm 36:11. Etc. The fathers have often done a marvelous job, surprisingly enough, of detailing the continuity between Old and New Testament, showing that the message was there in a form that allowed devout Jews like St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathaea to recognize Christ -- and more importantly, of demonstrating that Christ is the very same "He Who Is" of the Old Testament (and as our iconographic tradition makes clear in every single icon of Christ.)
When it comes to loving one's enemies, St. Theophylact in his commentary on this verse from St. Matthew actually uses Moses as a prime example of someone who did exactly that in his life, and says that all saints (intentionally encompassing both Old and New Testament saints) have always done this. The Pentateuch itself (Numbers 12:3) says that Moses was the meekest man in all the earth, doing so in the context of an event where his own brother and sister were speaking against him with enmity. In this event, as in many others, Moses prayed to God for those who had spoken and acted against him.
St. John Chrysostom, writing about the text "think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets" that follows directly after the Beatitudes asks: "Why, who suspected this? or who accused Him, that He should make a defense against this charge? Since surely from what had gone before no such suspicion was generated. For to command men to be meek, and gentle, and merciful, and pure in heart, and to strive for righteousness, indicated no such design, but rather altogether the contrary."
Regarding David, there are a number of examples of his specifically doing good to his enemies. In fact, one of the direct criticisms that his own "second in command" general levels against him in a particular episode of his life was that David was loving his enemies rather than hating them. The seeds even of this idea and attitude are there in the holy ones of the OT.
Third, as another example of the Messiah being referred to as God in the OT, perhaps the most interesting example is Isaiah 9:6. I wanted to check the details of the LXX before mentioning it, since this is an interesting passage. Most translations of the Hebrew include "Mighty God" as one of the titles for the child who will be born. Brenton's does not have this phrase, so I was curious as to what the various manuscripts indicate. I won't bore anyone with too many of the details, but multiple manuscript traditions, including the Lucianic (i.e. official Byzantine Orthodox) rescension do include the phrase that includes "Mighty God", etc...
Something that I found particularly interesting, given his favorable view of the Hebrew texts is Origen's rescension, where the primary LXX version he was using apparently did not contain this phrase that includes "Mighty God." But, Origen inserted it, marking it with an asterisk -- which was his symbol for a passage that he was drawing from another LXX manuscript, specifically in order to include a Hebrew reading that his primary LXX manuscript had, in his opinion, omitted!
Of course, modern Judaism has their own explanations for the meaning of this passage, as is understandable, so it "proves" nothing. The question, again, is rather whether Christian belief and doctrine was present in nascent but clear forms in the Old Testament, waiting to flower into clarity when Christ actually did appear.
Certainly it was the Resurrection that sent the Apostles back to the Old Testament Scriptures with newly opened eyes -- but when they did, they did not arrive at the conclusion that they had to reject the faith articulated in the Old Testament Scriptures in order to be Christians. They rather came to the conclusion that Christ came to fulfil, not destroy, the Law and the Prophets.
Anyway, this is one that will continue to go on in circles, so I will stop there.