"Lies! I Was Cheated" -- Pope Francis' Daring Statement About Mary

http://eponymousflower.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/lies-i-was-cheated-pope-francis-daring.html#more ^

[piusv]

"The Gospel tells us nothing: if she said a word or not ... She was quiet, but in her heart - how much she said to the Lord! 'You told me then - that's what we have read - that He will be great. You told me that You would give him the throne of his father David, that he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And now I see Him there!' The Blessed Mother was human! And perhaps she would have wanted to say, 'lies! I have been cheated!'.

[Cvengr]

Whenever we get too critical about “Jews”, I remind myself about the “King of the Jews”, and His interpretation of Judaism is likely much more accurate than His enemies.

[RobbyS]

I offer as a mere speculation that John was not a poor fisherman but the son of the owner of the boat. The trade in fish was huge, and John may have had dealings in the city selling it. If the Beloved Disciples was John the son of Zebadee, then he was by the steward of the High priest thru such a commercial transaction. Hence, John had adequate means to support Mary.

[RobbyS]

Paul never ceased to think of himself as a Jew and to act accordingly.

[NKP_Vet]

If not for the Catholic Church there would be no Bible. FACT.

[ebb tide]

Not only is it offensive to practicing catholics, it also feeds anti-catholics in the forum.

I am a practicing Catholic and the only thing I have found offensive on this thread is your attack on another Catholic just for pointing out the truth. You no more speak for practicing Catholics, than anybody else does (and that includes Nancy Pelosi or Chris Matthews, both of whom are practicing Catholics and both of whom are in full communion with their local bishop).

As far as your reference to VCII, I recommend you broaden your reading horizons. Here's a starting point:

Msgr. Gherardini: Vatican II is not a super-dogma The importance and the limits of the authentic Magisterium

[ebb tide]

Which came first? Adam or Peter?

[ebb tide]

Correction: Who came first? Adam or Peter? And who "interpreted" the Bible between their earthly lifespans?

[Buggman]

Paul clearly went through the Nazirite vows on his return to Jerusalem.

And took them while among the Gentiles, long before he knew there was a political situation back home (Acts 18:18). This has to be emphasized, since there are many Christians who are deeply disturbed by Acts 21 and would like to make it out that Paul and Jacob (James) were just compromising with the masses instead of following their own convictions--see the commentaries of Matthew Henry, for example. However, that argument falls apart when you realize that Paul was already under a Nazrite vow and always intended to complete it as instructed in the Torah: with three animal sacrifices, a grain offering, and a wine libation. What Jacob asked him to do was to also pay the expenses of four other Messianic Jews who had also taken vows (indicating that this was a common thing among Yeshua's first generation of followers).

He saw no contradiction in maintaining his Jewishness EXCEPT when it came to Peter's hypocrisy in pretending he was not associating with Gentiles.

And that is the key point: Paul thought that Jews should remain Jews and Gentiles Gentiles (1Co. 7:18) and that the circumcised (Jews) were debtors to do the whole Torah (Gal. 5:3), but he also believed that the barrier between Jew and Gentile established by post-Torah Jewish law, symbolized by the "middle wall of partition" that separated the Court of the Israelites from the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple, had been removed (Eph. 2:14).

Unfortunately, starting in the 2nd Century and culminating in the 4th, the middle wall was errected again--this time by the Gentile Christians who were oblivious to their own hypocrisy in doing so.

Shalom.

[Buggman]

This theory would not explain the settling (by the Gospel of John and in the Acts) on "the Jews" denoting not merely people of Jewish ethnicity but specifically the Pharisees, unconverted Jews in general, and Jews scheming to kill Jesus and His disciples in particular.

As xzins has already pointed out, people back then wrote in extremely broad terms and expected their audiences to pick up that they were talking about the leadership in particular.

Heck, we do that even today: We can talk about how "the Germans" invaded France during WWII, but obviously it was the Nazi leadership that made the decision and a minority of Germans who were actually in the military carrying out the orders.

Moreover, it is the Christians who have persecuted, robbed, tortured and murdered the Jews for the last two thousand years. By your own standards, your hands are soaked with blood, your churches are filled with stolen treasures, your national governments are built on robbery in the form of unpaid loans going back thousands of years.

Remember: "For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye" (Mat. 7:2-5).

Finally, those who were persecuted by "the Jews" in the NT were Jews themselves. How dare you use their sufferings as an excuse to hate their people whom they themselves loved! And how dare you hypocritically attack those who persecuted the Jewish disciples of the Messiah when you yourself do the exact same thing!

Shalom.

[xzins]

Acts 18: 18 Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cenchrea because of a vow he had taken

Forgive my ignorance, Buggman, but I thought one grew one's hair with a nazirite vow (Samson, John Baptist?)

[Buggman]

You do. However, the Torah declares that if you become ritually contaminated during the course of the vow, you have to go ahead and cut your hair, since the length of the hair reprents the length of time you spent dedicated to the Lord as a Nazrite (Num. 6:9, cf. v.18). Because Gentiles often did not mark their graves and because of some other ritual purity issues that I won't bore you with (though you can read my series on The Eighteen Measures if you wish for some more detail), Jewish law as codified in the Mishneh dictated that if any portion of the vow was spent outside of the Land, the Nazrite had to assume that he was contaminated and either (there was some debate on this) fulfill the vow over again in the Land (e.g., if he took a vow for three months, he had to start over and do another three months) or else fulfill a 30-day vow in the Land.

I've not found the specific ruling on the issue in the Talmud, but what I believe happened is that Paul took the vow while on his journey and came to the end of the specified period while in Cenchrea. Since it would dishonest to continue to grow out his hair (which would imply a longer vow to those who saw it) under the assumption of contamination, Paul shaved it, intending to repurify himself in the Temple as specified in Numbers 6:9-12. This is why Jacob (James) said that Paul should "purify yourself with" the other four under the Nazrite vow (Acts 21:24) rather than that Paul should take the vow.

This is the whole reason Luke even mentions the vow and the shaving of Paul's head three chapters earlier: He's anticipating the argument by Paul's enemies that he only took the Nazrite vow as a hypocritical show (pretty much Matthew Henry's position), and sets up chapter 21 by tossing in a mention of Paul's vow in a way that would leave a careful reader scratching his head and wondering why Luke felt the need to mention such an odd little detail in the middle of a travelogue.

When you add that to the fact that in Acts 24:17 that Paul says in his defense that he came back to Jersualem to present both "alms and offerings," and the word for "offerings," prosphoras, always means Temple sacrifices, never monetary gifts, it's pretty clear that Paul considered continued worship in the Temple to be the norm for Yeshua's followers for as long as it still stood, and that he himself both kept Torah and expected other Jews to do the same.

That's a huge shock for Christian theology, of course, and it demonstrates the fallacy of attempting to interpret Paul's letters without understanding the manner of Paul's life.

Shalom.

[Uri’el-2012]

unconverted Jews

What could that mean ?

There seems to be a great deal of
confusion about words.

If I understand the WORD correctly
with the exception of the Romans
every one else was a Jew.

I agree with you that the leadership
were called The Jews.

But we know who is the Father of Lies and Confusion.

Happy Hanukkah to those who
believe the Abib was counted wrong.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[xzins]

That's a huge shock for Christian theology

I agree. So many Christians think even Jews had no justification to continue the sacrificial system after the sacrifice of Jesus. But, it appears Paul engages in sacrifice as part of this vow. 26 The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them. Numbers 6: 13 " 'Now this is the law for the Nazirite when the period of his separation is over. He is to be brought to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 14 There he is to present his offerings to the LORD: a year-old male lamb without defect for a burnt offering, a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin offering, a ram without defect for a fellowship offering, 15 together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and a basket of bread made without yeast--cakes made of fine flour mixed with oil, and wafers spread with oil.

[Buggman]

Forgot to address this:

You mean Jewish converts? Have they not read "there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek" (Romans 10:12, similar Galatians 3:28)?

Have you not read that there is also "neither male nor female" (Gal. 3:28)? Does this mean that homosexual unions are now permitted, since there's no distinction? And why then does the Catholic Magesterium deny the priesthood to women, if indeed all such distinctions are done away with?

Moreover, have not not read, "Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised" (1Co. 7:18) and that, "Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Great in every respect" (Rom. 3:1-2)?

Since it is obvious that you have no problem with someone being a Roman Catholic or a Greek Orthodox or an American Christian, and since you recognize that even though men and women are saved by one Lord there are still distinctions between them, you once again betray your double-standard and theological anti-Semitism.

Paul says that there is no more Jew nor Gentile in the matter of salvation. You twist that and claim that there is no more Jew.

[xzins]

That's a huge shock for Christian theology

Formatting correction:

I agree. So many Christians think even Jews had no justification to continue the sacrificial system after the sacrifice of Jesus. But, it appears Paul engages in sacrifice as part of this vow.

Acts 21:26 The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.

Numbers 6: 13 " 'Now this is the law for the Nazirite when the period of his separation is over. He is to be brought to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 14 There he is to present his offerings to the LORD: a year-old male lamb without defect for a burnt offering, a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin offering, a ram without defect for a fellowship offering, 15 together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and a basket of bread made without yeast--cakes made of fine flour mixed with oil, and wafers spread with oil.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

excellent post

[Hegewisch Dupa]

Merry Christmas brother in Christ - let’s pray for a dictionary coming your way!!! XOXOXO

[ex-snook]

"Mary conceived without sin? No, she was not. She was human like all the rest of us."

Mary was the new Eve. Eve was created without sin.

[Buggman]

Nor was he the only one. When Acts 3:1 records that Peter and John went into the Temple "at the ninth hour" (about 3pm), that means they were going up to participate in the evening sacrificial and prayer service. Even if they weren't bringing along their own goats as qorban, they were still implicitly taking part in the daily burnt offering that the priests made on behalf of all Israel.

Also, think about the implication of just happening to have four Messianic men under a Nazrite vow when Paul wandered back into town. It means that this sort of thing was normal, that Yeshua's followers considered taking on purely voluntary vows that required strict attention to ritual purity and an expensive set of sacrifices to be perfectly fine and appropriate to their obedience to the Gospel.

As I just pointed out to annalex, the problem with post-Nicean Christianity is not that it chose to utilize the freedom given in Messiah to develop a Roman/Hellenist way of worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's that it refused to recognize the right of Jewish Christians to continue to worship and obey God in the manner that He Himself prescribed to our fathers--and in so doing, presented a false gospel to the Jewish people for the last 1600 years.

Shalom.

[annalex]

when John uses the expression "the Jews" that he is referring to the leadership of both Sadducee and Pharisee. Obviously, he didn't mean "of Jewish descent"

I agree. My point remains, -- actually it is the corollary of the above, -- that the ethnic Jews of the early Church would do likewise, and call themselves "Christians" or in Hebrew idiom, "Messianic", but not "Messianic Jews" or "Christian Jews".

[St. Paul] saw no contradiction in maintaining his Jewishness EXCEPT when it came to Peter's hypocrisy in pretending he was not associating with Gentiles

His Jewishness was irrelevant to his faith, as he plainly spoke (Galatians 3:28, Romans 10:12). His praise and habit of mortification of the flesh (Romans 8:13, 1 Cor. 7:1,7) may have Nazirite historical origin (as well as John the Baptist's), but the result of it is perfectly Christian monastic practices of celibacy and fasting back then and today. This is no different than how the entire body of Jewish faith having been absorbed, transformed and clarified by the Holy Church.