Certainly, the same way we all "prefer" the translation of the Bible into our own language or (in the case of, for example, missionaries) the language of our audience. But if the Apostles considered the LXX a good translation, but not inerrant, what were they checking it against? That's right, the Hebrew. Ea
Thank you for conceding the argument. We can probably move on to other subjects now.
But you argue for Protestant, historically insignificant theology while giving it a Hebrew flavor.
It depends on the situation. Since Catholics and Eastern Orthodox lump all of those not in their sect as "Protestants," I just go along with the label rather than waste time arguing about the term. However, you can find me on Protestant threads arguing many of the same things with my brethren there.
Form where I am standing, Messianic Judaism is traditional Catholic or Orthodox Christianity; what you have is a blend of Ashkenazi 15-19c culture and Baptist theology.
Actually, my congregation sides on the Sephardic side, but thanks once again for making assumptions instead of simply asking.
And no, Catholicism has nothing to do with true, Biblical, Messianic Judaism. The apostles never used icons, never venerated Mary (loved and respected yes; prayed to, no), kept the Sabbath on the seventh day (Acts 16:13, Heb. 4:1-11), kept the Passover (1 Co. 5:7-8) and other Feasts (Acts 20:16, Col. 2:16-17), and worshiped and even sacrificed in the Temple (Acts 2:46, 3:1, 21:26). Sha'ul remained a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), which meant that he kept not only the Torah but their traditions as well--nor was he the only one (Acts 15:5).
Not only your practices don't fit, your very thought processes don't either. Your thinking is Greek, not Jewish. Greek thinking is philosophical, whereas Jewish thinking is concrete. You try to parse down worship and veneration into different categories to avoid the charge of worshiping beings other than God, whereas a Jew says, "Well, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . ."
When your sect manages to get even the second and fourth commandments down correctly, we'll talk. Until then, don't even try to claim that Catholicism is Messianic Judaism.
He is clearly referring to the entirety of the doctrine the Thessalonians had received in different forms from the Apostles. You cannot exclude any tradition that never made it to the Gospel, such as for example, the day of the Sabbath.
Most certainly I can! God inscribed the Sabbath into stone with His own finger! Therefore only God, in the person of the Messiah Yeshua, has the authority to change it--and if He had done so, the Apostles would certainly have had to record it and defend the practice. History tells us that they did not do so.
Furthermore, Heberews 4 tells us that
There remains a Sabbath-keeping (Sabbatismos) to the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. (vv. 9-11)And how do we cease from our works as God did from His? "For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works'" (v. 4). Hmm, not that difficult to figure out, especially since there's no contradicting passage anywhere else in Scripture.
Your position that "God's commands in the Torah, ... were never annulled in the NT" is inaccurate: at the very least the dietetic restrictions and circumcision were annulled as binding, and the New Testament tells us so.
I've already dealt with the dietary restrictions here. As for circumcision, it was not required for Gentiles, but it remains incumbant on Jewish believers (Acts 21:21, 1 Co. 7:18)--oh, which by the way, your sect forbade Jewish believers to do in direct defiance of the Apostle's commands!
As for why the Apostles didn't put lay that command on the Gentiles, it had more to do with a rabbinic misuse of the command than with a change in the Torah: To the rabbis, a person who became circumcised became fully Jewish, required to keep all of the Torah and all of the Jewish traditions. If the Apostles made Gentiles get circumcised, they were in effect agreeing that Gentiles had not place in the World to Come, and that salvation was by faith plus being Jewish.
But what does Sha'ul say? "Circumcision (Jewishness) is nothing and uncircumcision (Gentileness) is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters" (1 Co. 7:19).
And before you try to cite Acts 15, let me point out that neither Baptism nor the Eucharist is listed there either--and yet, the RCC and EOC both consider them necessary prerequisites for salvation. Obviously then, the four commands there were not intended to be a ending point for the Gentiles, but a starting-point for fellowship--all of which were designed to prohibit the Gentiles from taking part in the pagan temples, btw. In v. 21, Ya'akov points out that the Gentiles, once separated from the pagan temples by the four commands, could hear Moses preached in the synagogue every Sabbath.
St. Paul writes to Timothy that "all scripture" that Timothy learned since childhood is inspired and good and profitable. If St. Paul wanted to draw a distinction between certain books of the Septuagint and other books, this was a good place to mention it.
What a fallacious argument! Sha'ul doesn't specify which books he considered Scripture, so you can't use that to prove the Apocrypha!
It's amazing how Catholics will always try to pour a gallon into a thimble in order to justify their unBiblical practices.
And vice versa, in the more numerous instances where Septuagint was the immediate source.
The apostles never used icons, never venerated Mary (loved and respected yes; prayed to, no), kept the Sabbath on the seventh day (Acts 16:13, Heb. 4:1-11), kept the Passover (1 Co. 5:7-8) and other Feasts (Acts 20:16, Col. 2:16-17), and worshiped and even sacrificed in the Temple (Acts 2:46, 3:1, 21:26). Sha'ul remained a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), which meant that he kept not only the Torah but their traditions as well--nor was he the only one (Acts 15:5).
Check on the word "eikona" (or "image") in the New Testament and you'll find plenty of scripture for the veneration of icons, which are called holy images of God, contemplation of which makes us holy.
Naturally, Christians differ in their practices much from the Jewish converts of the 1c. But if fulfillment of the Jewish law by the Messiah means anything, it means we are messianic Judaism. The issue is not the trappings and decoration, nor the pharisaic following of the letter of the OT law, but the continuation of the sacrificial priesthood in the apostolic Churches -- the very thing that defines you broadly as Protestant, -- even if I failed to describe your particular flavor right.
God inscribed the Sabbath into stone with His own finger!
And Christ rose on Sunday and told us "do it im memory of" Him. Not in memory of Moses. There was an argument. I can see your argument, at least for the preservation of Saturday as a day of rest, and distinct from a day of worship. The Church settled the argument. Likewise with circumcision and kashrut. These are private practices, just like venerating a particular saint or visiting Medjugorie.
Sha'ul doesn't specify which books he considered Scripture
Sure he did. He said, "all" of them.
As do many other christian and pseudo christian sects..
As the Yiddish idiom suggests.. "The Hunchback cannot see his own hunch but can see the hunchs of everybody else"... In the sense we are all hunchbacks..