Posted on 08/07/2006 6:18:10 AM PDT by topcat54
I’ve wondered how the name ‘Jesus Christ’ came about since there’s no J in the Hebrew language. Must have come from Julius Caesar.
Which you are completely unable to articulate, apparently.
C'mon, TC, you've been asked a dozen times to show us this amazing evidence that you keep claiming supports a pre-70s date. All you've managed to do so far is provide quotes of unsubstantiated opinion.
Put up or shut up.
This statement begs the question, how do we know it a second advent passage rather than one referring to the first advent (or some other event)?
For example, do we really need to set aside most of the NT teaching to think that far in the future a temple will be rebuilt and sacrifices reinstituted "to atone for sins" (Ezekiel 45:15,17,20) just so we can apply Ezekiel 40-48 to the second coming?
The approach by some seems to be that unless we can take a prophecy and find some historical event that lines up precisely as if we were reading the Jerusalem Post, then the prophecy cannot be applied, and must therefore, by default, refer to the second coming.
Does this approach have warrent from Scripture? Is this the technique used the NT writers? Not exactly. Just look at the way, for instance, that Peter applies the Joel 2 prophecy to the events of the day of Pentecost. He calls it "the day of the Lord". Was Peter mistaken in his association of Joel with Pentecost?
Sorry, friend, I'm not gonna do the heavy lifting for you. You're a big boy now.
Later, folks!
Anything is possible. The question is, is it probable?
As I said, if you can apply those visions and images to the future with apostolic authority, I'm ready to listen. All I've seen so far is speculation and opinion (that seems to change from year to year). Then again, the apostles weren't worried about selling books to the masses.
Ah. So the futurist interpretation requires Apostolic authority, but the preterist requires not even the authority of the ante-Nicean Church fathers?
Gotta love those double-standards of yours, TC. And I'll take that as your concession on point #2.
Do ping me if you ever manage to conjure up an actual argument.
There's no "J" in Greek either, which is what the NT was written in. Your point?
Just like you with a Bible. You’ll never be able to tell anyone what time it is.
Matthew 16
The Demand for a Sign
1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Yeshua and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.
2 He replied, "When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' 3 and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Yeshua then left them and went away.
Topcat54, Monkey with a watch since…
Not really.
Hebrew: Yeshua
Greek: Iesous (prounounced "Yey-sous"; there is no "sh" sound in Greek, and ending the name with a "ah" sound would've made it a girl's name, so the Apostles went with the Greek grammar to avoid confusion)
Latin: Iesus Later, the Latin script started putting a little hook on the end of their letter "i," making it look like "Jesus," but still pronounced "Yay-sus."
English: Jesus, with the hard "J" sound, because of the way we altered our pronounciations.
So basically Jesus is just a poor pronounciation of the Latin (carried through the German) which is a passible transliteration of the Greek, which is a poor transliteration of the Hebrew (made necessary due to the different language rules).
I think you're missing it, or perhaps you're are getting tired.
Neither the preterist nor futurist (nor historicist for that matter) views have apostolic authority in the sense that events after the close of the NT canon can be infallibly associated with particular prophecies.
However, unlike the preterist, what the futurist requires is that in addition to these prophecies admittedly applying to specific events in the 1st century, you also require that they be applied a second (third, fourth?) time to events thousands of years in the future. That is what I suggest requires apostolic authority. Otherwise all you are left with is a feat of legerdemain.
For example, the only reason one needs to reconstruct the Jewish temple in the future is for certain prophecies to be "literally" fulfilled (sort of), like yet another "abomination of desolation" and destruction. But the literal understanding is forced and not biblically required. We already know the temple was destroyed. We already know it all happened as Jesus foretold. So what forces you into the position of requiring it to happen all over again (like some eschatological Groundhog Day)? Faulty hermeneutics.
That, I suggest, is a woefully inadequate way to handle the text.
Just like you with a Bible. You’ll never be able to tell anyone what time it is. ... Topcat54, Monkey with a watch since…
Oooh, I'm gonna report you to Marlowe. He keeps track of these things, you know.
You've got it backwards, TC. As usual.
In addition to these prophecies admittedly applying to specific events immediately surrounding the future Second Coming, I allow that they also may apply to events of the 1st century, on the basis that other Messianic prophecies of the First Coming had allegorical fulfillments before Yeshua, but more literal fulfilments in Him.
The fact that I allow for a possible preterist fulfillment is in spite of the fact that the prophecy was not given until twenty-plus years later, and I do so on the basis of other prophecies that look both backwards and forwards from the time of the prophet (like Hos. 11:1, or any of the prophetic types in Israel's history).
If we're going to judge which of our positions is the p'shat ("the road," the plain meaning) and which is the remez (a secondary interpretation "hinted" at by an oddity of the text), then we have no further to look than Church history. Whereas I can show, for example, from the "hostile" witness of Justin Martyr, John Crysostom, and others that there remained through Christianity's earliest history a Torah-observant remnant, there is no witness of preterism as a competing viewpoint to futurism for the first three centuries of the Church.
In other words, the "plain meaning" of the Apocalypse was of a future eschaton to all who read it. They didn't even see a "hint" of the destruction of Jerusalem there.
Funny that.
No surprise there.
because of the broad assumption that it somehow was related to the term "Nazrite," one set apart. Not so!
Or, perhaps, they simply couldn't find the passages that said the Messiah would be called a Nazarene/Nazarite/one separated etc.
Nazareth, which would be more closely transliterated Netzeret (using a tsade, pronounced "tz," instead of a zayin, pronounced with a softer "z" sound), comes from the Hebrew word netzer, which means "branch." (Netzeret could be loosely translated, "Branch-town.")
I understand that the name of the town is spelled with a tzaddi (seen at the bottom of this handy map), whereas Nazarite and its "separate" variations are spelled with a zayin. Furthermore, a n[ts]r root also can mean:
05341 natsar {naw-tsar'}
a primitive root; TWOT - 1407; v
AV - keep 38, preserve 13, watchmen 3, besieged 2, keeper 1,
monuments 1, observe + 07521 1, preserver 1, subtil 1,
hidden things 1, watchers 1; 63
1) to guard, watch, watch over, keep
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to watch, guard, keep
1a2) to preserve, guard from dangers
1a3) to keep, observe, guard with fidelity
1a4) to guard, keep secret
1a5) to be kept close, be blockaded
1a6) watchman (participle)
Which explains why the Strong's Greek lists Nazareth as meaning "the guarded one". Yet, Nazarene/Nazarite is given as meaning "one separated". There does seem to be an association between the two meanings (as in, the one who is guarded/kept is by extension separated in some way).
Matityahu is therefore employing a pun to call attention to the numerous prophecies that refer to the Messiah as the Branch of David (Isa. 11:1; Jer. 23:5 & 33:15 and Zec. 3:8 & 6:12 use a synonym in the Hebrew, Tzemach, which means the same thing).
Except for Isaiah 11:1 (which if pictured as a genealogy tree could indicate two branches, the one out of Jesse and another - the netzer - from his roots/ancestors, but that's another study), the others as you noted use the word tzemach. Now I am not claiming a lack of similarity between the meanings of tzemach and netzer, but a word play employing a switch of phonetically similar letters is well, more of a word play than a comparison of synonyms. Kind of like Israel/Jezreel.
Okay. Back to the passage in Matthew. If read with the immediate context in mind, the family (well, Joseph specifically) turned aside to Nazareth in order to avoid Archelaus. That is, Joseph distanced the family from the not-so-lovable ruler. The scene is one of protection and separation, giving weight to a word play between natzar (to guard from danger) and nazir (one separated). Branches, by contrast, appear out of place.
Matthew 2:21-23
21 And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.
22 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:
23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
If that is read plainly through (no change in the antecedent, for no person-as-subject is introduced), it makes sense thusly:
And he [Joseph] arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.
But when he [Joseph] heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he [Joseph] was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he [Joseph] turned aside into the parts of Galilee:
And he [Joseph] came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He [Joseph!] shall be called a Nazarene (one separated).
Joseph, the one separated, as the prophets (Jacob and Moses) declared:
Genesis 49:26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate [5139] from his brethren.
Deuteronomy 33:16 And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated [5139] from his brethren.
05139 naziyr {naw-zeer'} or nazir {naw-zeer'}
from 05144; TWOT - 1340b; n m
AV - Nazarite 12, undressed 2, separate 2; 16
1) consecrated or devoted one, Nazarite
1a) consecrated one
1b) devotee, Nazarite
1c) untrimmed (vine)
Now don't go on arguing that this Joseph is irrelevant because he suddenly vanished from the NT narrative and thus has been presumed dead. ;-)
Not to mention the mysterious Joseph of Arimathaea (perhaps of Ramah, where Rachel wept for her children) who appeared suddenly in the crucifixion narrative as a rich man who came to claim the body.
Jerome's (331/420 a.d.) letter to Marcella re: Nazareth. Epistle XLVI, Paragraph 13, Line 1017. Here Jerome refers to Nazareth as "The Flower of Galilee"....as its name denotes. Fairly well lines up with Isaiah Isaiah 11:1.
Anyway....in the fourth and fifth century the name Nazareth had some significance to "A Branch".
It is so wonderful that you think I am in denial. But, I will continue in this kind of denial because all references are not based on Irenaeus. BTW, just because 2 or more people have the same opinion, that doesn't mean that there opinion comes from the same person. It could come from the same base of known FACT.
And that says nothing about those writing after 90 AD who still assumed the future fulfillment of prophecy.
What you're trying to sell is a package that says all was fulfilled but the apostles didn't seem to know, they didn't tell it to anyone because early Christians don't mention how everything is fulfilled.
You'd think if all was fulfilled that it would have popped up in SOMEONE'S writing early on in the church.
This is an absolutely ridiculous comment. If you have absolute proof that Revelation was written prior to 70 AD, then post it. If you post the above kind of pap, then it's fair for everyone to totally discount your comments on the subject.
Checkmate.
How's the weather in Ohio?
It's a little bit rainy, moderately hot, and exceedingly humid.
Are you coming to visit?
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