A Noachide's response to chr*stianity (Vanity)

Also, having read both threads and all of the comments fully, I was impressed that it had a bare minimum of flames.

There are still miracles.

Leaving the vowel out of God’s name is usually done to show respect. Using a lower case for Christianity is usually done to show disrespect.

Is Christ God, and thus deserving of respect, or is Christ not even a title deserving of respect? What point were you trying to make with your headline?

"I hope I haven’t said anything too terribly stupid."

...not that I can see, yet. There is very little time to read tonight, so I'll try to finish reading it tomorrow night. ...driving back and forth over one of the most dangerous high passes every day and night to do hard physical labor.

I smiled while reading about the "worlds," though, and our duty to settle and prepare the nations. I know what you've been reading: what I should be reading again...and again. [another smile]

It's interesting that change is difficult for most people to tolerate, while some of us are drawn to it with excitement.

I’ll try to cite an answer for you another day. But we very strictly only believe in The One G-d, and we try to avoid displaying names of any others. It has to do with our first Law (for Gentiles and everyone).

Hyam Maccoby, Revolution In Judaea: Jesus And The Jewish Resistance

'A little pricey, but I first read it out of my local library.

Happy Chanukah!

And Merry Christmas to all our Christian friends!

bump for reply later

Thus the Fundamentalist Protestant (hereinafter FP) pitch to Jews invariably begins by pointing out that everyone is a sinner; that no one has ever kept the Torah perfectly. Therefore, since no one is without sin

Do you disagree with this?
Has anyone except Jesus Christ ever lived their entire life sinless?

According to the Bible, no one that has yet to accept the Messiah can enter Heaven. Everyone before that point is not necessarily in Hell (There is another place called Abraham’s Bosom) but they are not in Heaven, yet.

The only alternative (other than 100% sinlessness) is for G-d to incarnate Himself (chas vechalilah!) and vicariously damn Himself in the place of every sinner. In fact (according to this view) the whole point of the Torah was to illustrate that, since no one can live a 100% sinless life, all human obedience to G-d is futile, since it's all-or-nothing.

The only alternative was for G*d to incarnate himself and pay the sin debt for all mankind.
He did not damn himself. He did not “accept” our sins. He paid the price for our sins that we might not have to pay that price ourselves.

The only "salvation" in the TaNa"KH is rescue from a dangerous situation of some kind.

That is exactly the situation all mankind is in.
What could be more dangerous than spending eternity in Hell?
G*d offers us this salvation as a gift. Just like with any other gift we have to decide to accept, or reject, this gift.

In FP thought G-d, being holy and perfect, cannot create anything less holy or perfect than Himself, else He would be implicated in imperfection, which is unthinkable.

G*D, being perfect, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, etc, can do whatever he desires. Our imperfections do not detract from G*d’s perfection. His plan is perfect, not all his creations are perfect. They couldn’t be unless, like Jesus Christ, they are G*d himself. We were created in G*d’s image, not as G*D himself.

In fact, it was created first (974 generations before Creation according to tradition) and the universe only after.

John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

In Judaism (and consequently Noachism) it is obedience to G-d's laws in this world that is what it is all about. Of course at death the soul reports to G-d for judgement and some sort of assessment is made, but this assessment will be based on our obedience to G-d's commandments (and our repentence for our sins). This is not an all-or-nothing judgement, for the factors of each individual soul, its trials and tribulations, are something only G-d could possibly judge or recompense. And we will not be cast aside because we were not 100% perfect in a way no created thing (not even the sun and the moon) can be (the First Sin was committed, after all, not by a fallen man but the perfect first-created man).

How do we stand before G*d as impure beings? There must be some way for us to be purified. As long as we have a sin debt we cannot be purified. That’s what the blood sacrifice, even from the Old Testament, was, and is, all about. The blood sacrifice for all mankind was paid by the sacrifice of the only person that has EVER lived a perfect sinless life. Salvation from the dangerous situation is offered but must be accepted by the individual.

but I hope I have succeeded in getting sincere chr*stians (especially antinomian FP's who do so much proselytizing and "witnessing") to see that in this worldview the notion that messiah has already come is ludicrous, and that such arguments as the current absence of blood sacrifices simply do not address the underlying issues at all.

You have not succeeded in getting this Christian to see this.
I appreciate the discourse but the idea that we can stand before G*d to be judged on our own account is the worldview that, to me, is ridiculous.

How do we stand before G*d as impure beings?

The same way the sun, moon, earth, stars, and angels (none of whom are 100% pure in the sight of G-d) do.

I'm sorry my words were too feeble to make my point, but I stand by my position. G-d never demanded a perfection of which no created thing is even theoretically capable. He demands that we each do our part to perfect the world in the Kingdom of the A-mighty. Every single deed we do in life, good or evil, is judged and somehow recompensed. Life is not about being saved or going to Heaven. It's about obeying G-d down here where our souls were sent from Heaven. The idea that the slightest imperfection calls for either damnation or salvation by the "messiah" is a straw man.

If you were to read a Jewish prayerbook you would not read many prayers asking to be taken to Heaven. You'd read prayers for food to eat, clothes to wear, time to study the mysteries of the Torah, long life to see the Days of Mashiach and the World to Come, the restoration of the Temple Service, the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom, etc.

It is not for you to finish the work, but neither are you free to withdraw from it.

Besides, for fifteen hundred years chr*stianity merely replaced the "works of the law" (from the Bible) with its own "works of the law" adopted from surrounding pagan cultures. That was better . . . how???

I don't know how good a job I have done in this re-write (re-writes are always inferior to the original),

Like paraphrasing poetry. Don't.

The same way the sun, moon, earth, stars, and angels (none of whom are 100% pure in the sight of G-d) do.

The sun, moon earth, stars, and angels will not be judged by G*d.

It doesn't matter WHAT good works we do here on earth, not that we shouldn't strive to do as many as we can, they would almost invariably not be enough to make ourselves worthy to stand before G*d.
We can NEVER do enough good works to justify us in G*d's sight.

It is a gift that G*d offers that we have to accept.

The angels still in heaven have not sinned. They may not be perfect but they haven't sinned.
The angels that sinned, Lucifer for example, were thrown out of heaven.

I agree that we should obey G*d here on earth and do our best to make the earth a better place.

Everything we do here on earth will be judged. If we did not have an intercessor we WOULD be damned for eternity. Not necessarily to Hell but not with our Heavenly Father either, and that could be just as bad.

It is not imperfection that damns a person. It is sin without payment. Payment cannot be made unless the gift is accepted.

I'm not sure I understand your last statement.
If you would care to amplify I might be able to respond.

The sun, moon earth, stars, and angels will not be judged by G*d.

Teh sun, moon, stars, and every created thing is judged by G-d every year on Ro'sh HaShanah. And did you not read my original post? Perhaps you just skimmed it? The ground sinned before man was created, and the moon, which was originally the same size as the sun, was reduced.

It doesn't matter WHAT good works we do here on earth, not that we shouldn't strive to do as many as we can, they would almost invariably not be enough to make ourselves worthy to stand before G*d.

You seem to be totally unwilling or unable to understand that this "man was created perfect, then sinned, and is now lost unless he is either perfect or saved" is totally alien to the Hebrew Bible. It is from the "new testament," the truth of which is at issue here but which you insist on assuming. You then retroject this into the Hebrew Bible.

How much does the Hebrew Bible have to say on the state of the individual soul? Some, but it certainly doesn't obsess on it. The Torah (and mostly the Prophets and Writings as well) are concerned with the development of world history. And certainly the Torah, the foundation as well as the peak of Jewish revelation, says nothing about the salvation of the individual soul. It contains history and laws. Does it contain instructions for an atonement ritual? Of course. Did this atonement ritual atone for the individual soul in the chr*stian understanding so the individual could be "saved?" Please. This is your projection of the later, chr*stian worldview into the Hebrew Bible. Have you noticed that all these atonement rituals were given to Israel only? The Torah does not speak directly to non-Jews at all. And Yom Kippur was primarily a communal atonement for the Nation.

Have you read the Torah's threats for sins? It says very little about "eternal damnation." It mentions exile, plague, captivity, diseases, slaughters . . . it says nothing about what happens after death. This is because the afterlife in Judaism is an esoteric teaching, less important than the systematization of Torah Law. You may insist that this "esoteric" nature lasted only until the time of J*sus and that the "new testament" makes the doctrines of the afterlife public for the first time, but this is an assumption on your part. The fact that you assume it does not make it true.

Did I not communicate the idea that Torah is not just some basic, unimportant, temporary, and preparatory revelation but the supreme revelation? All theories of "progressive revelation" are inherently unprovable. If revelation "progresses" from lower to higher, where does it stop? I know you will say with the "new testament," but that is arbitrary on the part of chr*stians. If revelation "progresses," why shouldn't chr*stianity be superseded by islam, which would be superseded by sikhism, which would be superseded by bahai, which would be superseded by something new to come along? When would it ever stop? Judaism, alone of all the religions of the world, is the only one that identifies the first revelation as the supreme one, while every other religion has to claim a "progressive" revelation until it comes to its own scriptures (at which point it stops, of course).

Did I fail to convey the very important fact that the Prophets and Writings are not "higher than" the Torah but progressively lower than it? The Torah was not written under Divine Inspiration at all. It was written by G-d. It is of wholly Divine authorship. Moses was only a stenographer. The Torah was written before the world was created. The Prophets were written by men under the spirit of prophecy, which is a step lower, and the Writings were written under Ruach HaQodesh (the Holy Spirit), which is a step lower still. The Prophets and Writings are only being publicly read in synagogue services temporarily until they are fulfilled, after which they will have served their purpose. But the Torah is eternal. It was before the First Sin, after it, on earth, in Heaven (where it is studied by angels), and even in the World to Come when our evil inclinations will have been sublimated. It is eternally in force.

We can NEVER do enough good works to justify us in G*d's sight.

I really think you didn't even bother to read my post. Did you not read that I don't claim to be "perfect" or "good enough" or any other number of straw men you may choose to come up with? The notion that G-d has only one way of dealing with imperfection--eternal damnation (or else chr*stian salvation)--is something that you and people like you choose to assume. And btw, even most non-Protestant chr*stians don't believe it (else their own rituals, masses, prayers, etc., would be of no use). I was not put on earth to be perfect, damned, or saved. You were not put on earth to be perfect, damned, or saved. The whole "perfect, damned, or saved" thing is a scenario you assume from the "new testament" because you accept its authority from the outset. But I do not. Both of us, on the other hand, accept the authority of the Torah. If there is to be a new religion the Torah must authorize it. And yet even the sloppiest reading yields the fact that it claims to be in effect forever and that it disallows any such "higher revelation" as chr*stianity claims to be. Have you ever read the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy?

It is a gift that G*d offers that we have to accept.

Everything is a gift from G-d. Our very existence is a gift from G-d. Can you not for one moment, even if you do not agree with me, pull yourself out of this worldview to see for one moment what I am trying to say? At least then you'd know what you were rejecting rather than rejecting some self-drawn caricature of someone who thinks "I don't need any help getting to Heaven because I'm so good."

The angels still in heaven have not sinned. They may not be perfect but they haven't sinned. The angels that sinned, Lucifer for example, were thrown out of heaven.

Okay. This proves that you never read my original post all the way through. There is no angel named "Lucifer" who fell from Heaven (that's a teaching from the "new testament" based on a misunderstanding of a passage in the Prophets). G-d created the angel Sama'el and gave him the jobs of being HaSatan (the Satan, the adversary), the Yetzer HaRa` (the Evil Inclination), and Mal'akh HaMavet (the angel of death). I think he is also the national angel of 'Edom. But he is not in rebellion against G-d at all. Only a dualist who rejects the idea of One Supreme G-d could believe that there is some evil counterpart to G-d who is responsible for the evil in the world. As I said in my initial post (which, again, you obviously didn't read) G-d Himself created the ground (which sinned), the moon (which sinned), and created 'Adam with both a good and evil inclination (Genesis 2:7). The evil inclination, and even Satan, are creations of G-d. They are part of a world in which man has Divine instructions and the freewill to obey or disobey them. Heylel Ben Shachar ("Lucifer, son of the morning") is not Satan but the planet v*nus. When G-d addressed the king of Babylonia He was sarcastically referring to his pride and his shining garments. "Look at this. What's the planet v*nus doing down here?"

I agree that we should obey G*d here on earth and do our best to make the earth a better place.

Once again you don't quite get it. It's not about merely "doing good and making the earth a better place." It's about each and every one of us doing his part to utterly transform the physical world in "the Kingdom of the A-mighty." Who needs Heaven? We came from Heaven! We were sent from Heaven down here to do this, and all you can only think of it is as a temporary test to be endured on the way to Heaven. If G-d wanted us in Heaven, why did He not keep us there? Obedience to G-d's laws unleashes spiritual forces throughout all the worlds, just as disobedience and sin unleashes destructive spiritual forces throughout the worlds. All our lives long we are engaging in this activity which eludes our senses. And as I keep saying it is not our job to finish the work. It is only for us to do our part. And this is not the "perfection, damnation, or salvation" scenario of antinomian chr*stianity.

Everything we do here on earth will be judged. If we did not have an intercessor we WOULD be damned for eternity. Not necessarily to Hell but not with our Heavenly Father either, and that could be just as bad.

Again, you persist on reiterating the "absolute perfection, or else damnation, or else salvation" scenario, which is the topic of dispute in this thread. Can you justify this worldview by the Torah? Never mind the "new testament." Its authority is what is in dispute here. Just because you believe it doesn't make it true. A moslem could just as easily "prove" islam by quoting the claims of the koran. But the point is that neither chr*stianity nor islam are authorized by the Torah. The fulfillment we look for is a world utterly and supernaturally transformed by Torah observance and in which, even though sin and evil are sublimated, the Torah remains eternally in force.

It is not imperfection that damns a person. It is sin without payment. Payment cannot be made unless the gift is accepted.

What makes you think that the penalty for sin is "damnation?" Does the Torah intimate anything about "eternal damnation?" Or are you just going to quote Paul and expect me to say "Oh well, that proves it?" Quoting Paul no more proves chr*stianity than quoting the "holy qur'an" proves islam!

I'm not sure I understand your last statement. If you would care to amplify I might be able to respond.

I find that hard to believe, as you are surely aware that until the Protestant Reformation all chr*stians engaged in "works" and "merit" that would put any Jew or Noachide to shame. Perhaps you should first convince these people, whose version of chr*stianity actually goes back to the time of J*sus, before you try to convince me, that the whole purpose of G-d's creation was salvation of the individual soul by means of an antinomian loophole?

You know, I'm disappointed that you obviously never read my first post (which dealt with many of the isses you raised in your "response" to it). I can only assume you have no intention of going back and reading over it in its entirety. You probably won't even read all of this one.

The thing is, I used to believe exactly as you do. I grew up under the influence of a preacher who taught that "the worst form of badness is human goodness," that the vast majority of mankind are "egomaniacs strutting their way to hell, thinking they're too good to be damned." I've been there! I never rejected that worldview because I suddenly developed the idea that I was "good enough" for G-d. I rejected it because I came to see in light of the Hebrew Bible that this whole worldview is simply in error. And part of how I learned that was the painful discovery that actual historical chr*stianity did not say this at all. It merely said the Torah had been superseded, but had been replaced by something else just like it "only better" and that my beloved form of chr*stianity (which was at least consistent in its view of human works) was only a few hundred years old.

I suggest Protestants first convince Catholic, Orthodox, Non-Chalcaedonian, and Nestorian chr*stians of the validity of their antinomian worldview before arguing with anyone who defends the Torah.

One thing I can say that I have done is that I have been forced to examine the claims of other people--people with whom I disagreed--seriously on their own terms rather than merely answering those claims by endlessly repeating my own assumptions. I am sorry that you, for whatever reason, do not wish to try doing this for even one moment.

We will have to agree to disagree for the moment.

To debate you using specific passages from the Old Testemant is more than I am prepared to do at this moment.
To put it bluntly, I am not as cognizant of all the passages of the Old Testemant as I am of the New Testament.

By the by, just a question - When you say Torah you are meaning only the first five books of the Old Testament, correct?

At this moment I cannot debate your assumption, just like mine, using only the Old Testament or the Torah.

When it comes down to it it is a matter of faith, and faith doesn't require proof.

I will attempt to investigate the old Testament for arguments for this debate.

Have a happy New Year

Thank you, and my apologies for being so unpleasant. I tend to behave that way when frustrated.

For now let me close our conversation by making one small, solitary point: my self image, nurtured by the preacher I spoke of, has not changed. I am quiet cognizant of my utter unworthiness before G-d. It is my worldview, not my view of myself, that has changed.

All the best!

"To put it bluntly, I am not as cognizant of all the passages of the Old Testemant as I am of the New Testament."

My peers of the past also repeatedly redirected me toward the New. Then I resolved to study for a few years without being distracted.

"I will attempt to investigate the old Testament for arguments for this debate."

Here are some references to words that you might find interesting.

Isaiah 43:11

Zechariah 14:9

Malachi 3:6

...even better, if you read whole books for context to know who the phrase, "son of man," really refers to. Arguments about "types" and "shadows" tend to evaporate under such study.

Hello Zionist Conspirator.

Nice screen-name!

Side note: You've apologized many times for the quality of your writing, given what you have

posted is a rewrite of a lost document. I recommend typing long posts in Notepad, and copy and

pasting to your browser when done. Personally, I used www.openoffice.org to type this response up.

Side note #2: I have tried to use the expression “Tanach / Old Testament” for the benefit of the Christians and Gentiles that will stumble upon this post. I mean no disrespect when I say “Old Testament”. Why should Hebraic jargon interfere with their understanding? This is the most important topic ever.

For the reader's benefit, when I quote you, I will put your words in bold. Tanach / Old Testament verses will be in blue. I will quote the New Testament in red.

Note carefully: my imperfection, and the imperfection of every human being, is not an original discovery of yourself, nor does it in and of itself vindicate your religious beliefs.

It would depend on the quality, and frequency of the imperfections discovered in this essay. If

you conclude that gentiles should be Noachides, and you use faulty premises to build up the

case for such, and faulty premises to tear down Jesus Christ as Messiah and God, then, with

respect, you would be in error sir.

I have pulled quotes from your vanity, in an effort to summarize your major points. Here are my

observations of your vanity, which is in response to my vanity

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2152441/posts.

1) Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense. No one goes door to door passing out tracts.

2) So each individual must either live an entire life of absolute sinlessness or else face this

inevitable fate--unless G-d incarnates Himself as a divine scapegoat to take this punishment Himself on behalf of every single individual.

3) This, more than sanctity in the higher spritual worlds, shows forth G-d's greatness. And how was this to be accomplished? Keyhole, meet key--by the observance of the Torah.

4) Please do not confuse this, the true concept of tiqqun `olam, with G-dless imitations.

5) Of course at death the soul reports to G-d for judgement and some sort of assessment is made, but this assessment will be based on our obedience to G-d's commandments (and our repentence for our sins). This is not an all-or-nothing judgement, for the factors of each individual soul, its trials and tribulations, are something only G-d could possibly judge or recompense.

6) I hope I have succeeded in getting sincere chr*stians (especially antinomian FP's who do so much proselytizing and "witnessing") to see that in this worldview the notion that messiah has already come is ludicrous

7) The Torah foretells periods of destruction and exile when the sacrifices cannot be offered (these are always punishments for abandoning the Torah, not for "rejecting the messiah").

8) And when the real Mashiach comes it will not be subject to debate but a fact that no one on earth will be able to deny. So long as we're debating, then he hasn't come.

9) I take the following quote from your post 8 in the vanity I posted, “It did not take chr*stianity to discover that we all sin. Even before man was created the ground sinned when G-d told it to bring forth `etz peri `oseh peri and instead it brought forth `etz `oseh peri. The universality of sin is not a chr*stian discovery.”

10) All theories of "progressive revelation" are inherently unprovable. If revelation "progresses" from lower to higher, where does it stop? I know you will say with the "new testament," but that is arbitrary on the part of chr*stians. If revelation "progresses," why shouldn't chr*stianity be superseded by islam, which would be superseded by sikhism, which would be superseded by bahai, which would be superseded by something new to come along? When would it ever stop? Judaism, alone of all the religions of the world, is the only one that identifies the first revelation as the supreme one, while every other religion has to claim a "progressive" revelation until it comes to its own scriptures (at which point it stops, of course).

11) Finally, I take the following quote from your post 23 in the vanity I posted, "And unless you're implying that since the sacrifices cannot be carried out at this time that the Torah as "expired" (G-d forbid!). First, the Torah itself predicts exile (during which sacrifices cannot be brought)--never as a punishment for "rejecting the messiah," but always and only for straying from the Torah itself.

Before we begin: As a founding premise for everything I say in response to your essay, the Tanach, which Christians call the Old Testament, is the very inspired, inerrant, Word of God. The evidence supporting this notion is at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. The Tanach / Old Testament is the Word of God, because it says what happens, thousands of years before it happens with accuracy, and specificity not seen anywhere else. Devils and men can't do this. Only God.

If you don't accept the above as evidence for the Tanach / Old Testament being the inspired, inerrant Word of God, then I thank you for reading as far as you have.

Let's begin now. I will echo your words in bold, and respond.

1) Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense. No one goes door to door passing out tracts.

I will now break up this paragraph, and respond to it piecemeal.

1A) Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense.

I brought up PaRDes before. As a reminder to all ...

1) Pashat/Literal primary meaning
2) Remez/Hints in the text of something deeper
3) Drash/The added understanding that can only be gleaned by a story, riddle, or parable and the deepest level
4) Sod/Secrets and mysteries, which are mysterious underlying secrets revealed in the text,
which can and often do require many hours, weeks, months and in some cases even years to receive, through the diligent study and meditation in YHWH’s Word.

... and your response to this PaRDes summary in post 43 is, “PaRDeS assumes the eternal validity of Torah.” But I don't see why this is necessarily the case. Is there some Torah/Tanach/Old Testament that you could point me to that I might understand why you say this?

“Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.”

Ezekiel 37:12

Plainly, the dead rise. Some to an eternal Kingdom which we know as heaven, and some to damnation and hell as we infer from the following verses ...

"For great [is] thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell."

Psalms 86:13

Hell is "low" Deuteronomy 32:22

Hell has "sorrow" II Samuel 22:6

Hell is "deep" Job 11:8

The Wicked are turned into "Hell" Psalms 9:17

The soul will not be left in "hell" but a "path of life" will be shown Psalms 16:10-11

For the wicked "death" and a quick trip to "hell" are prayed for in Psalms 55:15

The mercy of God delivers from hell in Psalms 86:13

Solomon spoke of hell in Proverbs 5 and 7 and 9.

I could go on, but you get the point. Hell is scriptural, it's not nice, and I don't want anyone I know to go there.

But even if we couldn't infer that the dead rise to damnation or paradise, Daniel spells it out for us ...

“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.”

Daniel 12:2

The aforementioned verse from Daniel, summarizes, and ties together many verses from the Tanach / Old Testament. In one of the many caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, there was a papyrus found where Daniel was called the “greatest” of the prophets. Thus I would think it fitting that Daniel would have the privilege of tying it all together.

1B) “No one goes door to door passing out tracts.”

“Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”

Jonah 1:1-2

The modern notion of Judaism not being evangelistic, and it's only Christians that evangelize, is an invention. Original Torah Apocalyptic Judaism is evangelistic.

“Keep therefore and do [them]; for this [is] your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation [is] a wise and understanding people.”

Deuteronomy 4:6

In Deuteronomy, we see that God is interested in the nations seeing a great Jewish nation, and coming to faith in their God, the true God.

When you look at a map, you will notice that Israel is the bridge between Africa, and the rest of the world. God centered Israel in the center of the known world, so that it might evangelize to the nations as the nations passed through Israel.

Thus says the Lord, Keep judgment, and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Happy is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it; who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Do not let the son of the stranger, who has joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord has completely separated me from his people; nor let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.

For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, who join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and all who hold fast to my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel says, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those who are already gathered.

Isaiah 56:1-8

In the above verses, God invites the son of the stranger, and eunuchs to join Israel. The notion that the nations are not to be attracted to, and invited into the covenant God made with Israel, is a modern invention.

2) So each individual must either live an entire life of absolute sinlessness or else face this

inevitable fate--unless G-d incarnates Himself as a divine scapegoat to take this punishment

Himself on behalf of every single individual.

Again, PaRDes. The sacrifice of innocent animals is a type and shadow for the Messiah which was to come.

Maimonides once said, “All the prophets spoke of Moshiach as the redeemer of Israel and their savior” If Maimonides saw Messiah in the Tanach / Old Testament, should not you look more carefully?

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53:6

God lays our iniquity on the person mentioned in Isiah 53. The “divine scapegoat” is the Messiah himself. The notion that the “divine scapegoat” is Messiah was also mentioned by non-Christian Jews.

As long as Israel dwelt in the Holy Land, the rituals and sacrifices they performed (in the Temple) removed all those diseases from the world; now the Messiah removes them from the children of the world.

Zohar 2:212a

3) This, more than sanctity in the higher spritual worlds, shows forth G-d's greatness. And how was this to be accomplished? Keyhole, meet key--by the observance of the Torah.

But even the Torah says in Deuteronomy 18:15 that God would send a prophet. Genesis 49:10, and many others do also. If Torah was meant to be forever, then Messiah would not be necessary.

Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was their master, says the Lord;

Jeremiah 31:30-31 Soncino Tanach / Old Testament

Even though we were given Torah, God promised a Messiah.

4) Please do not confuse this, the true concept of tiqqun `olam, with G-dless imitations.

Did "tiqqun olam" which amounts to creating heaven on earth in the name of God, get coined or

before or after the destruction of the 2nd temple in 70 A.D.?

5) Of course at death the soul reports to G-d for judgment and some sort of assessment is made, but this assessment will be based on our obedience to G-d's commandments (and our repentence for our sins). This is not an all-or-nothing judgment, for the factors of each individual soul, its trials and tribulations, are something only G-d could possibly judge or recompense.

I won't repeat myself about this matter.

6) I hope I have succeeded in getting sincere chr*stians (especially antinomian FP's who do so much proselytizing and "witnessing") to see that in this worldview the notion that messiah has already come is ludicrous

Sir, I would be extremely impressed if you can decisively, systematically, logically, and historically tear down the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html which supports the notion that Messiah has already come.

Between what Daniel, Haggai, and Genesis report to be the time of the Messiah, we can triangulate the coming of Moshiach to be early 1^st century.

Rashi also agreed Daniel spelled out the time of Messiah ...

He (Jonathan) moreover sought to make a Targum of the Hagiographa; but the voice from heaven came forth and said, "Enough." And why might he not execute a Targum of the Hagiographa? Because the End about the Advent of the Messiah is revealed in it. Rashi says, "In the Book of Daniel."

Megillah fol. 3a

“The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts.”

Haggai 2:9 Soncino Tanach / Old Testament

What did God mean about “give peace” in the 2^nd Temple, if it meant not the coming of the Messiah?

“The staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the scepter from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the obedience of the people be.”

Genesis 49:10 Soncino Tanach / Old Testament

It was whilst the 2^nd temple still stood that the Talmud reports that the Jewish leaders thought that Genesis 49:10 should be fulfilled. The following are what some ancient Rabbis thought of Genesis 49:10

The transmission of domain shall not cease from the house of Judah, nor the scribe from his children's children, forever, until Messiah comes.

Targum Onkelos

Rabbi Johanan said, ‘The world was created for the sake of the Messiah, what is this Messiah’s name?’ The school of Rabbi Shila said, ‘his name is Shiloh, for it is written, until Shiloh comes. (Genesis 49:10)’

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b

Kings and rulers shall not cease from the house of Judah…until King Messiah comes.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan

UNTIL SHILOH COMETH; this alludes to the royal Messiah. AND UNTO HIM SHALL THE OBEDIENCE (YIKHATH) OF THE PEOPLE BE: he [the Messiah] will come and set on edge (makheth) the teeth of the nations of the world.

Midrash Rabbah, Genesis XCVIII. 8

Kings shall not cease from the house of Judah...until the time of the coming of the King Messiah...to whom all the dominions of the earth shall become subservient.

Targum Yerushalmi

Since the destruction of the 1^st Temple in 587 BC, the Jewish people though continuously occupied by a “lawgiver from between his feet”, were always given by their conquerors the option of wielding the “scepter” for executing whoever they esteemed worthy of death according to the Law of Moses.

According to Josephus, the ascension of the Roman Procurator Caponius in the early 1^st century also marked the end of the Jewish option of wielding this scepter.

And now Archelaus' part of Judea was reduced into a province, and Caponius, one of the equestrian order of the Romans, was sent as a procurator, having the power of life and death put into his hands by Caesar.

Josephus

The aforementioned eyewitness report by the 1st century Jewish Pharisee Josephus is corroborated by the following quote from the Talmud:

A little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the power of pronouncing capital sentences was taken away from the Jews.

Josephus

The relevant question is, now that we've established that “Shiloh” is an idiom for “Messiah,” as well as the fact that the “scepter” had been struck from the hand of Israel by the “lawgiver” Caesar, did the Jewish leaders recognize the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10?

They did, and they recorded it in the Talmud.

When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them: they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: 'Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come.'

Rabbi Rachmon

For a fuller discussion with references on historical corroboration of the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10, please visit http://www.direct.ca/trinity/shiloh.html.

7) The Torah foretells periods of destruction and exile when the sacrifices cannot be offered (these are always punishments for abandoning the Torah, not for "rejecting the messiah").

Sir, I respectfully disagree.

Our rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the western most light shine ...

Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39b, Soncino Version

The crimson colored strap supernaturally became white when God accepted the sacrifice made by the Jewish priests for the collective sins of Israel. God stopped manifesting this miracle, according to the Talmud 40 years before the destruction of the 2^nd temple. The 2^nd Temple was destroyed in 70A.D. 70 minus 40 years means 30A.D. is precisely when the punishment of God refusing Israel's sacrifices started.

One must ask themselves: What happened in 30AD for God to punish the Jewish people by refusing their sacrifices? The answer is, the Jewish leaders began publicly insulting the ministry of Jesus Christ (“Anointed Savior”).

The [Jewish leaders] said, 'He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.'

Matthew 9:34

And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.

Mark 3:22

On the off chance you believe that the Jews didn't kill Jesus on the charge of claiming to be God, and rather the Romans did, here are the words of Maimonides in his “Letter to Yemen”.

Jesus of Nazareth... impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.

Maimonides

Again, the exact year the Talmud reports the punishment having begun, is the exact year that Yehoshua Ha Mashiach arrived on the scene, performing miracles, and proclaiming the “Kingdom of Heaven” is “at hand”.

8) And when the real Mashiach comes it will not be subject to debate but a fact that no one on earth will be able to deny. So long as we're debating, then he hasn't come.

Deuteronomy 18:19 makes it perfectly clear that people will have a choice to follow Messiah or not. Isaiah 53:1 shows that reports of the Messiah's coming will be doubted.

For 15 prophecies that foretell the rejection of Moshiach, please see http://messiahrevealed.org/rejected.html.

The fact that people reject Moshiach, does not negate from his authenticity at all. In fact it proves it, since His rejection was foretold, and the Word of God does not lie, because only it says what happens before it happens with accuracy and specificity.

9) I take the following quote from your post 8 in the vanity I posted, “It did not take chr*stianity to discover that we all sin. Even before man was created the ground sinned when G-d told it to bring forth `etz peri `oseh peri and instead it brought forth `etz `oseh peri. The universality of sin is not a chr*stian discovery.”

A) It did not take chr*stianity to discover that we all sin.

True. For the Jewish doctrine of Original Sin, please see ...

Genesis 8:21

II Chronicles 6:36

1 Kings 8:21

Psalms 14:2-3

Psalms 53:3-4

Psalms 130:3

Proverbs 20:9

Isaiah 64:4-6

Ecclesiastes 7:20

Ecclesiastes 8:11

Ecclesiastes 9:3

Jeremiah 17:9

Micah 7:2-3

Isaiah 53:6

B) “Even before man was created the ground sinned”

Pulling out my trusty electronic Soncino Tanach, which for those of you not graced with a nominal Jewish upbringing as I was, is an English Old Testament translated by Jews for Jews circa 1960-1963, we read ...

... and fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:11-12

Pushback #1 to “ground sinned”) If the ground or trees disobeyed in Genesis 1:12, meaning the 1^st sin came before the fall in Genesis 3, why would the Bible also report in Genesis 1:12 that, “God saw that it was good.” Was God blind to this sin by the ground? Put another way, if sin did not get introduced into creation when Adam and Eve's partook of the forbidden fruit, why did God only curse Adam, Eve, and serpent in Genesis 3 *after* the fiasco in the Garden of Eve?

Pushback #2 to “ground sinned”) What kind of tree yields fruit other than a fruit tree? This “ground sinned” theory makes it sound like God commanded fruit, and for all intents and purposes, got fruitbats. Functionally, what is the difference between what God commanded, and what he got in Genesis 1:11-12? Could it be possible the person who came up with this theory is inadvertently making God out to be impotent, just for the sake of opposing Original Sin as a Biblical doctrine that began with Adam and Eve's sin?

Pushback #3 to “ground sinned”) Do you have any idea when this interpretation was birthed? I would draw some comfort that it was brought forth in good faith if it could be verified that it pre-dates the time of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ.

10) All theories of "progressive revelation" are inherently unprovable. If revelation "progresses" from lower to higher, where does it stop? I know you will say with the "new testament," but that is arbitrary on the part of chr*stians. If revelation "progresses," why shouldn't chr*stianity be superseded by islam, which would be superseded by sikhism, which would be superseded by bahai, which would be superseded by something new to come along? When would it ever stop? Judaism, alone of all the religions of the world, is the only one that identifies the first revelation as the supreme one, while every other religion has to claim a "progressive" revelation until it comes to its own scriptures (at which point it stops, of course).

The reason the progression of revelation continues with the New Testament, is because the New Testament, like the Old Testament, says what happens, thousands of years before it happens with accuracy and specificity. Please see http://www.direct.ca/trinity/evidence.html and http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html for the details. This is what Grant Jeffrey appropriately called, the signature of God. By which you know that you can trust your eternal destiny to the God revealed in the Bible.

Why does the progressive revelation continue through the New Testament and cease with Islam et. al.? The writings of Islam don't tell the future with accuracy and specificity the way the Bible does. Devils and men can't do what you bear witness to at the aforementioned links. Only God can. All you have to do to dismantle my response to your point, is tear down the evidence at the above links, and my responses which follow your challenges, and this case falls apart.

Why does not the revelation continue with Sikhism, Bahaiism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnessism, and Scientology? They don't predict the future as only God does in the Bible. The signature of God is not in their writings as demonstrated in the above links. God did not write them.

Even the first revelation of Judaism promised the Messiah, and Christianity is the fulfillment of that promise. Islam claims that Christianity is true but that it was corrupted, thus leaning on the truthfulness of Christianity for credibility. Mormonism and Russelism do the same thing, leaning on Christianity as true. Their founding premise, like that of Islam, is that Christianity is true, but has been corrupted over the years. All this, despite Psalms 12:6-7 and Jesus' claim that “my words will not pass away”.

11) Finally, I take the following quote from your post 23 in the vanity I posted, "And unless

you're implying that since the sacrifices cannot be carried out at this time that the Torah as (sic)"expired" (G-d forbid!). First, the Torah itself predicts exile (during which sacrifices cannot be brought)--never as a punishment for "rejecting the messiah," but always and only for straying from the Torah itself.

I have already laid out the ...

A) ... case for the messiah having come in the past.

B) ... case for the rejection of the Messiah.

If the Messiah is God himself, then rejecting the Messiah would be rejecting God himself. Please see http://www.yourarmstoisrael.org/misc/pdf/The%20New%20Updated%20Messianic%20Believers%20First%20Response%20Handboo..pdf for the case for the systematic and deliberate erasure of the divine name, YHVH, from the received Masoretic text at least 134 times, specifically in cases where one could infer the Messiah to be God.

Thus, Israel rejected God, and thus his Word, Jesus Christ, when they rejected their Moshiach.

The Brief Case For Christianity:

1) http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. If you disagree, please tell me what exact sentence

your disagreement begins.

2) http://messiahrevealed.org/category-index.html I don't require a response to all 300+

fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy in the life and times of Jesus Christ. If you could show

me a verse in the Tanach / Old Testament where it says the Messiah must accomplish all in one visit, or a verse where it says the Messiah can't do all in two visits, I will be impressed to no end. I have compassed the Tanach many times, and I have not seen it.

None of us has the time to instantly and expertly answer every point brought up in this forum. I am patient for an excellent response from you, about this most important of matters.

Your task, “if you choose to accept it”:

1) Show me how I err in my statements questioning Noachidism (sp?), as presented.

2) Tear down the Brief Case for Christianity I have made in the above two points.

Sir, I don't know you. But I hope I have presented this material respectfully, and accurately.

Have a great day.

- ROTB

Just coming back online after Yom Shevi`i. Will read and comment later.

A lot of meat in your post and links.
Thanks for sharing.

God Bless.

I have just saved your very detailed post in my computer files that I may peruse and study it in detail. Thank you for your patience.

Note carefully: my imperfection, and the imperfection of every human being, is not an original discovery of yourself, nor does it in and of itself vindicate your religious beliefs.

It would depend on the quality, and frequency of the imperfections discovered in this essay. If you conclude that gentiles should be Noachides, and you use faulty premises to build up the case for such, and faulty premises to tear down Jesus Christ as Messiah and God, then, with respect, you would be in error sir.

Here I am afraid you have misunderstood my point. It is not that my case may be undermined by the mistakes of my presentation (though that is certainly true; any apologist for any religion may inadequately make his case and thereby create the impression that his position is wrong even when this is not the case). My point was that many chr*stians assume that the very fact that all men are sinners proves, in and of itself, that chr*stianity is true. For example, your personal FReeper page seems to make this argument: "have you ever committed a single, solitary sin in your life? Are you less than perfect? Then you must accept Chr*st or be eternally damned." That all men are sinners, are less than perfect, is not an original observation of chr*stianity, nor does it in and of itself prove the claims of chr*stianity. And on top of that, it isn't even the argument of the older versions of chr*stianity. Roman Catholicism, for example, argues for "Purgatory" in part on the grounds that "most people are not good enough for Heaven or wicked enough for Hell." So your antinomian, all-or-nothing approach to perfection isn't even universal in chr*stianity (and is unknown to the ancient churches).

Before we begin: As a founding premise for everything I say in response to your essay, the Tanach, which Christians call the Old Testament, is the very inspired, inerrant, Word of God. The evidence supporting this notion is at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. The Tanach / Old Testament is the Word of God, because it says what happens, thousands of years before it happens with accuracy, and specificity not seen anywhere else. Devils and men can't do this. Only God.

If you don't accept the above as evidence for the Tanach / Old Testament being the inspired, inerrant Word of God, then I thank you for reading as far as you have.

The inspiration of the "old testament" does not rest, at bottom, on mathematical evidence (though there is much evidence encoded in the Torah itself). The Torah Oral and Written (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) was given by G-d to Israel at Mt. Sinai. Of all the books of the Bible, only the Torah was written directly by G-d Himself. It was not written by any human being (not even Moses) under Divine inspiration. Moses was merely a stenographer. The five books of the Torah are therefore also the only Biblical books that were never canonized by a human authority. No canonization was ever necessary, because it was the direct revelation of G-d.

The Prophets and Hagiographa, however, were written by men (under Divine inspiration) and had to be canonized by competent Torah authority. The Nevi'im (Prophets) were written under the spirit of Prophecy (Nevi'ah), which is a step below the direct Divine authorship of the Torah. The Ketuvim (Hagiographa) were written under Ruach HaQodesh (the Holy Spirit, it, Divine inspiration) which is a step lower still. So as the Bible "progresses" the level of inspiration does not increase, but rather decreases. This is so because the first Revelation--the Torah--is simultaneously the ultimate, definitive Revelation. This goes contrary to the notion of progressive revelation held by other religions, but other religions must adopt progressive revelation in order to make the Torah temporary or low-level revelation.

Who was the authority that canonized the Na"KH (Prophets and Hagiographa)? The 'Anshei-HaKenesset HaGedolah (Men of the Great Assembly). They had no authority to pass judgment on the Torah but rather debated on which of the writings claiming to be holy not only truly were the work of Divine inspiration, but which would be necessary to comfort Israel throughout its Exile until its final regathering (there were many, many prophets and prophecies which were written under the Spirit of Prophecy but were useful only for their own time). The books that are in the Protestant "old testament" are there because these ancient Jewish Sages ruled that they were inspired and carried a multigenerational message. And there were arguments about almost every book (I believe the only one over which there was no argument was 'Ekhah, Lamentations). The reason the Books of the Maccabbees are not included in the TaNa"KH (even though they tell the story of the institution of the festival of Chanukkah) is that the Sages had already closed the canon. And in canonizing these books what was their rule and guide? The Torah. The books written by G-d Himself were the supreme and ultimate rule by which to judge all other scripture (which illustrates its supreme authority over all later scriptures or writings claiming to be scripture). Any writing that was contrary to the Torah would never have been canonized.

1A) Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense.

I brought up PaRDes before. As a reminder to all ...

1) Pashat/Literal primary meaning
2) Remez/Hints in the text of something deeper
3) Drash/The added understanding that can only be gleaned by a story, riddle, or parable and the deepest level
4) Sod/Secrets and mysteries, which are mysterious underlying secrets revealed in the text, which can and often do require many hours, weeks, months and in some cases even years to receive, through the diligent study and meditation in YHWH’s Word.

You and I both believe in PaRDeS. Our disagreement is your assumption that the true below-the-surface meanings of the Torah is that chr*stianity is coming. A little later on you will ask where the Jews get this or that teaching (ie, the sin of the ground) and suddenly PaRDeS will seem to slip from your memory.

The question is not whether or not there is PaRDeS, but if PaRDeS, rightly understood, teaches chr*stianity.

... and your response to this PaRDes summary in post 43 is, “PaRDeS assumes the eternal validity of Torah.” But I don't see why this is necessarily the case. Is there some Torah/Tanach/Old Testament that you could point me to that I might understand why you say this?

Now this is a very interesting position for you to take. You have just argued that the Torah doesn't have to explicitly teach chr*stianity because it is taught in PaRDeS. Yet now you ask me to prove something by the surface sense of Scripture. Do you believe in PaRDeS or don't you? My guess is that you really don't believe in PaRDeS; you believe in the "new testament" when you then retroject into the PaRDeS of the Torah.

“Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.”
Ezekiel 37:12

Plainly, the dead rise. Some to an eternal Kingdom which we know as heaven, and some to damnation and hell as we infer from the following verses ...

-SNIP-

The resurrection of the dead is dogmatic in Judaism. It is the subject of the second blessing in the `Amidah (which was composed by the Prophets of the Great Assembly). It is the last of RaMBa"M's thirteen principals of faith and is supposed to have been one of the points of contention between the Perushim and Tzadduqqim (Pharisees and Sadducees).

However, it is not at all clear that this resurrection is to Heaven and Hell. In fact, the verse you just cited seems (granted, on teh surface) to refer to a resurrection of Israel alone so that they may reenter the Holy Land.

The permanence of the life of the resurrected dead is also a subject of speculation. RaMBa"M said that those resurrected would live a normal lifetime and then die again, because life as a spirit is higher than life in a physical body. 'ARIZ"aL, however, said that those resurrected would be raised to eternal life in their bodies. There are also debates about whether resurrected married couples will have to be remarried in order to live together, whether the resurrected will have to be ritually purified after having been dead, etc.

"For great [is] thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell."
Psalms 86:13

Hell is "low" Deuteronomy 32:22
Hell has "sorrow" II Samuel 22:6
Hell is "deep" Job 11:8
The Wicked are turned into "Hell" Psalms 9:17
The soul will not be left in "hell" but a "path of life" will be shown Psalms 16:10-11
For the wicked "death" and a quick trip to "hell" are prayed for in Psalms 55:15
The mercy of God delivers from hell in Psalms 86:13
Solomon spoke of hell in Proverbs 5 and 7 and 9.

I could go on, but you get the point. Hell is scriptural, it's not nice, and I don't want anyone I know to go there.

So much to say here!

First of all, I have looked up all the above quotes I could find (except those in Proverbs) and they all deal with She'ol. She'ol, as you know, is not the chr*stian hell. It is derived ultimately from the Hebrew root shin-'alef-lamed which makes up the verb "to ask." It is "the place that is asked about," the grave. The chr*stian hell has much more in common with Ge-Benei-Hinnom (the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom), a place of burning torment for the wicked, and this I mist assuredly do believe in. The name for this place is derived from a valley outside Jerusalem where pagan sacrifices were once made and which was afterwards used as a garbage dump. This place is almost exactly equal to the chr*stian concept of hell (some exceptions), but I will deal with that later.

What I said in my initial apologetic was that I denied the specifically chr*stian concept of hell and eternal damnation. This is the concept that every single human being, not being sinless, must either spend an eternity in a place like Ge-Benei'Hinnom unless "saved" by Chr*st. I have never denied either She'ol or Ge-Benei-Hinnom, but these are not the chr*stian hell (the latter is more similar, as I have noted).

Before going any further, I would also like to clear up one very important thing. You seem to imply that I reject the chr*stian hell simply because it is unpleasant. The pleasantness or unpleasantness of eternal damnation is not a factor in whether or not this is a true concept. My rejection of the chr*stian hell (the eternal damnation that awaits every soul who does not take advantage of chr*stan salvation) is based on theology, not on the fact that such a place sounds scary.

Now let us look at what you are really doing here, which is 1)assuming the truth of chr*stianity and the "new testament" from the outset and then 2)invoking every mention of She'ol you can find in the TaNa"KH to reinforce this assumption and to "prove" that the TaNa"KH points toward chr*stianity. In what way does any of these quotes imply the eternal hell of those who die without being "saved?" And I note that it is the "wicked" who are turned into She'ol, not the "unsaved." Surely you don't believe people justified themselves by their own works in those days?

The most flagrant example of eisogeting chr*stian salvationism/damnationism onto a place where it plainly does not exist is the quote of David HaMelekh in II Samuel where he says "the travails of she'ol surrounded me" (chevlei She'ol sabbuni) in referring to how G-d ultimately delivered him from his enemies (Saul, the Philistines). David's remark about being surrounded by chevlei She'ol most certainly has nothing to do with the hell of chr*stian theology (the place to which every human being who rejects chr*stian salvation is doomed to spend eternity).

But there is something even more fundamentally at work here. As chr*stians have done for two millenia, you ignore the thrust of the Torah (which is primarily a book of laws) in order to find affirmations of the chr*stian hell--and thus chr*stianity--in every mention of She'ol that you find in the TaNa"KH. This is nothing but eisogeting something already assumed from another source. I wonder why you didn't mention the She'ol in the belly of Jonah's fish.

But even if we couldn't infer that the dead rise to damnation or paradise, Daniel spells it out for us ...

“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.”
Daniel 12:2

Again, the resurrection of the dead is not in dispute here. The resurrection of the dead in the future in no way requires chr*stian belief, since it has been a Jewish doctrine for thousands of years and is believed in by Orthodox Jews (who are not chr*stians) to this day. But before commenting further here I must make a few observations.

First, all prophecy by its very nature carries a sense of contingency. For example, Jonah told the Ninevites their city would be overthrown in forty days--no ifs, ands, or buts. But we all know this was not done because the Ninevites repented. This prophecy was contingent.

Secondly (as you probably know), the Book of Daniel is not among the Prophetic books but among the Ketuvim, which means that the contingency is greater and that the book was written under Ruach HaQodesh, not the spirit of prophecy.

Thirdly, the messiah is an office (Davidic King) which means that in every generation since David's time there has been at least one person qualified to be Mashiach HaMelekh should Israel and the world merit it. The very first person in history who could have performed this role (ultimate king from the House of David) was Solomon. The messianic redemption ("redemption" meaning as in the Exodus, not as in the chr*stian concept of salvation from sin) could have happened at any time from Solomon until the last possible instant--the end of the year 6000. The messianic age must begin at some time prior to Ro'sh HaShanah 6001 (and this is the year 5769, as you know). Solomon could have been the ultimate Mashiach but he was not. So could an individual from every generation since then. Messiah could have come in any of these generations but did not. He may come in our generation but may not. He might not show up until the last possible opportunity, but he might come earlier. The most likely generations are alluded to in Scripture, but (like Jonah) the prophecies were contingent. G-d opted not to raise up Mashiach. Similarly many other prophecies (such as the rise of Armilus, and "anti-christ" figure) may well have been vitiated by other events (such as the drawing out of the exile). Armilus might have arisen if Mashiach had come in earlier ages; but the extra suffering caused by the prolonging of the exile and the delaying of Mashiach may have taken the place of Armilus.

Parenthetically, I would point out that there were also occasions in the past when the world could have experienced what we today call the messianic era without it even getting to the point where David was born. If Adam had not sinned, if Israel had not built the Golden Calf, and if Israel had not believed the "evil report" of the spies concerning 'Eretz Yisra'el are three such examples.

I am well aware that the Book of Daniel is regularly invoked as having predicted the "first advent" of J*sus. I have not yet conducted a systematic study of it so I don't claim to be able at this time to answer all of your claims As you know, you and I differ on the fundamental issue of whether the Torah is the ultimate, permanent revelation (which, G-d willing, we will get to later). If this position is accepted, no prophecy can be legitimately interpreted as abrogating it. Your fundamental assumption is that the Torah is temporary, at a low level of a progressively developing revelation (growing ever higher), and apt to be overthrown by any verse in the Prophets.

Now we turn to the verse in question:

"And many from among the sleepers of the ground of dust will awake, these to eternal life and these to reproach and eternal abhorrence."

The verse you quoted merely affirms the resurrection of the dead (and on the surface level only of Israel) and of reward and punishment. That those who rise to eternal life are the chr*stian "saved," and the others the "unsaved" (in the Evangelical chr*stian sense) is an assumpton imposed upon the text.

The aforementioned verse from Daniel, summarizes, and ties together many verses from the Tanach / Old Testament. In one of the many caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, there was a papyrus found where Daniel was called the “greatest” of the prophets. Thus I would think it fitting that Daniel would have the privilege of tying it all together.

Dead Sea papyri are not authoritative. Only the authentic, continuous, uninterrupted Jewish tradition of the past 3300 years (as preserved in the authentic Oral Torah and its elucidating literature) is authoritative. If you assume that that tradition has been knowingly and intentionally falsified then we had might as well stop our debate here and now. To alter the holy texts (as claimed by the enemies of Torah Judaism) goes against each and every instinct and teaching. Jews have counted the verses and letters in each Biblical book and are careful to add or subtract nothing. Even apparent "errors" in the text are never corrected. In addition to this there is the unpleasant fact that by claiming that the Jews of the first chr*stian century came to realize their mistake, actually came to realize they were "wrong," and then rather than admit their mistake actually alter their holy books rather than convert you are in essence positing the existence of a people of pure evil. Why else would anyone knowingly refuse to follow the truth even after admitting it is the truth??? And before you say "obviously, they wanted to retain power over the Jewish people," you forget the point that had they converted they would have probably provided the most prestigious of the clergy of the new religion and would have had similar power there, as bishops and priests have in chr*stianity--plus they'd have it over many more people than before. To refuse this power over the masses of the new religion in order to retain power over one tiny nation doesn't really bespeak power-hunger.

1B) “No one goes door to door passing out tracts.”

“Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
Jonah 1:1-2

The modern notion of Judaism not being evangelistic, and it's only Christians that evangelize, is an invention. Original Torah Apocalyptic Judaism is evangelistic.

“Keep therefore and do [them]; for this [is] your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation [is] a wise and understanding people.”
Deuteronomy 4:6

In Deuteronomy, we see that God is interested in the nations seeing a great Jewish nation, and coming to faith in their God, the true God.

When you look at a map, you will notice that Israel is the bridge between Africa, and the rest of the world. God centered Israel in the center of the known world, so that it might evangelize to the nations as the nations passed through Israel.

Thus says the Lord, Keep judgment, and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Happy is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it; who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Do not let the son of the stranger, who has joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord has completely separated me from his people; nor let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, who join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and all who hold fast to my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel says, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those who are already gathered.
Isaiah 56:1-8

In the above verses, God invites the son of the stranger, and eunuchs to join Israel. The notion that the nations are not to be attracted to, and invited into the covenant God made with Israel, is a modern invention.

What we've got here is . . . failure to communicate!

I am afraid that you have misunderstood my point, perhaps due to my own clumsiness of phrasing. By saying that "no one in Israel went around passing out tracts" I intended to make the point that the Evangelical chr*stian religion, and its concept of "salvation by faith alone" did not exist in those days. Over and over and over and over again Israel is commanded and warned to observe the Torah--not to "have faith" or "believe in the messiah who is coming to die for your sins and be saved." This is an anachronism which Evangelicals impose on the ancient Israelites.

I quite agree with you that the ancient Israelites were indeed to be proselytary--though not in the conventonal sense. Though non-Jews were allowed to become full Jews, however, this was never required. From the beginning Israel was destined to be one tiny nation out of all mankind with a unique covenant with and mission from G-d. They are "a nation that dwells alone" and "the smallest of the nations." Israel's mission is to impel the nations of the world to forsake their idols for the One True G-d and to cease and desist from their frightful immorality--in other words, to come to the Seven Laws of the Sons of Noah. While becoming Jewish is permitted for non-Jews, the Seven Noachide Laws are required. And as a Noachide no one is more frustrated at the anti-proselytary, pluralistic, "I'm okay/you're okay" attitude of today's Orthodox Jewish communty than me. (A "Museum of Tolerance?" Really? Is that what Joshua did after slaughtering the Canaanites? He built a "Museum of Tolerance?" Wow! We learn something new every day, don't we?)

2) So each individual must either live an entire life of absolute sinlessness or else face this inevitable fate--unless G-d incarnates Himself as a divine scapegoat to take this punishment Himself on behalf of every single individual.

Again, PaRDes. The sacrifice of innocent animals is a type and shadow for the Messiah which was to come.

Please forgive this observation, but your iconsistent invocation of PaRDeS only as an excuse to eisogete chr*stianity into the Torah (while rejecting it in apparently all other instances) is hypocritical and dishonest.

Your assertion that the qorbanot (offerings) were primarily intended to prepare Israel for the crucified "messiah" is of course what chr*stianity has been asserting for two thousand years. And chr*stians don't seem to understand that their assertion of this theory does not make it so.

There are other problems as well. For one, while non-Jews are allowed to offer qorbanot (though only the `olah, the "whole burnt offering"), they are not required to do so. Only Jews are required to do so.

Then there is the fact that there are so many different kinds of qorbanot. There are whole burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, thanksgiving offerings, peace offerings, individual offerings, communal offerings, mandatory offerings, freewill offerings, and special offerings for various occasions (such as the qorban Pesach, the Pesach offering). Chr*stianity, especially Evangelical chr*stianity, will find itself in quite a quandary in reducing all these to "shadows to prepare Israel for the messiah who was to be crucified for their sins." What about the fact that the individual chatt'at (sin offering) could only be offered for unintentional sins and were not available for intentional ones? (It was repentance--teshuvah--that, then as now, transforms intentional sins into unintentional ones so that they can be forgiven.) What about the many meatless, bloodless grain offerings? Are they a "shadow" of the Catholic mass? Or what about the embarrassing fact that the qorban Pesach, supposedly the "shadow" per excellence, was not a sin offering at all and that if that were the case J*sus should have died on Yom Kippur rather than during Pesach (Yom Kippur, not Pesach, is about atonement). Now it looks like you will have to become Eastern Orthodox (since they reject "atonement" as Evangelicals understand it) in order to identify the qorban Pesach as chr*stological.

And there is one final problem. These qorbanot, according to you, were all given to Israel merely to prepare them for the atoning death of J*sus, yet the one people who were given the lesson didn't learn it, and everyone else (who never had the lesson at all) did! How likely is it that outsiders to whom G-d had never directed his "lesson" would be the ones to "learn" it while the people who actually received it from Him drew very different conclusions?

Maimonides once said, “All the prophets spoke of Moshiach as the redeemer of Israel and their savior” If Maimonides saw Messiah in the Tanach / Old Testament, should not you look more carefully?

I never said that the Prophets didn't prophesy of Mashiach and I am sorry if I said anything that gave you that idea. There are many, many prophecies of a Davidic King regathering the Exiles and conquering Israel's enemies. What are these if not Messianic prophecies? But the point you are ignoring is that "redeemer and savior of Israel" RaMBa"M does not refer to "dying for Israel's sins" but delivering them from exile and from their enemies, as they were "redeemed" from Egypt in the Book of Exodus. To quote RaMBa"M's phrase as if it were an endorsement of chr*stianity is really not honest on your part. But then, it's fully in line with "proving" the truth of chr*stianity's claims by quoting the verse "in you (Abraham) all the nations of the world will be blessed." Yep, that one verse couldn't have any other possible meaning but "one of your descendants will be G-d incarnate and will be vicariously punished for the sins of mankind" could it?

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Isaiah 53:6

God lays our iniquity on the person mentioned in Isiah 53. The “divine scapegoat” is the Messiah himself. The notion that the “divine scapegoat” is Messiah was also mentioned by non-Christian Jews.

As long as Israel dwelt in the Holy Land, the rituals and sacrifices they performed (in the Temple) removed all those diseases from the world; now the Messiah removes them from the children of the world.
Zohar 2:212a

Isaiah 53 has always been chr*tianity's trump card, the one thing that supposedly means that J*sus is the messiah, that dying was his mission, and that in light of this fact the Torah simply must be dismissed as obsolete or superseded. This is the really the crux of the argument between the two religions. If Torah is absolute, then no further revelation, regardless of what it seems to say, can overthrow it. If revelation is progressive and culminates in J*sus, then the Torah cannot be eternal and absolute, regardless of how little it seems to speak of something greater to come, how eternal it asserts its statutes to be, or how horrifying the punishments it threatens on abandoning it (since in light of the later and "greater" revelation it simply must be abandoned).

This argument has been answered by people far more learned than I over the centuries, and I commend to you their comments, which are available on any number of counter-missionary sites. Let me just reiterate that the `eved mentioned in Chapter 52 (the referent of these famous verses) is traditionally the Jewish People (personified as "My servant, Jacob"). And while chr*stians see the J*sus' dismissal by the Sanhedrion as a sinner stricken by G-d as being what this prophecy is referring to, Jews can certainly point out that for two millenia chr*stians have seen them as "stricken of G-d"--allegedly punished, exiled, and cursed for the crime of "deicide." This certainly fits the prophecy every bit as well.

3) This, more than sanctity in the higher spritual worlds, shows forth G-d's greatness. And how was this to be accomplished? Keyhole, meet key--by the observance of the Torah.

But even the Torah says in Deuteronomy 18:15 that God would send a prophet. Genesis 49:10, and many others do also. If Torah was meant to be forever, then Messiah would not be necessary.

The verse you cite is the commandment to listen to a prophet, and it (like the rest of the Torah) is still in effect (even though prophecy was removed from the world at the time of the return from Babylon). The first of these prophets was Moses' successor, Joshua. After the cessation of prophecy it refers to Moses' successors in the rabbinate (every generation has a Nasi', Moses' title). But even here, no Prophet or successor has the authority to overthrow the Revelation G-d gave to Moses. As RaMBa"M said, "Moses is the father of all wise men, both those who came before, and those who come after."

Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was their master, says the Lord;
Jeremiah 31:30-31 Soncino Tanach / Old Testament

Even though we were given Torah, God promised a Messiah.

G-d told Jeremiah that the day would come when He would make a "new covenent" with the House of Israel. But why do chr*stians assume this refers to their "new testament?" They assume this, of course, because they already believe in the claims of chr*stianity, and therefore this prophecy simply must refer to chr*stianity, right?

One problem with this is that the chr*stian "new covenant" was not made with the House of Israel but with all the nations of the world (unless you want to claim that the chr*stian church is the "House of Israel" referred to). Then there is the fact that it makes much more sense, and is much more natural, to understand this prophecy in two other ways which are much more consistent and literal. The first of these is when "Ezra gave the Torah a second time" and the covenant Israel made with G-d at Sinai was renewed. It was at that time that `avodah zarah (the lowest and most depraved form of idolatry) was removed from the world. And while Israel had been plagued by idolatry since the Golden Calf, after this time it disappeared from Israel and the entire nation became a nation of Torah scholars. Another possibility is the future event of which this new covenant at the time of Ezra is merely an echo: the World to Come when sin will be completely removed from the world because man's evil inclination (given to him by G-d) will be completely sublimated--while the Torah will remain in force. (Surely you do not claim that the evil inclination was sublimated, and sin disappeared, two thousand years ago!)

Once again, like all chr*stians, you eisogete your assumptions into the TaNa"KH. You already believe that J*sus is the messiah, that the messianic prophecies refer to him, and that the Torah was but a temporary preparation (more on this below). Therefore you interpret the TaNa"KH to mean precisely this.

4) Please do not confuse this, the true concept of tiqqun `olam, with G-dless imitations.

Did "tiqqun olam" which amounts to creating heaven on earth in the name of God, get coined or before or after the destruction of the 2nd temple in 70 A.D.?

You don't believe in Heaven on earth? You don't believe in the Millenium? What are you, Catholic? Because if you are I could have dismissed your claims with must less trouble.

5) Of course at death the soul reports to G-d for judgment and some sort of assessment is made, but this assessment will be based on our obedience to G-d's commandments (and our repentence for our sins). This is not an all-or-nothing judgment, for the factors of each individual soul, its trials and tribulations, are something only G-d could possibly judge or recompense.

I won't repeat myself about this matter.

Ditto.

6) I hope I have succeeded in getting sincere chr*stians (especially antinomian FP's who do so much proselytizing and "witnessing") to see that in this worldview the notion that messiah has already come is ludicrous

Sir, I would be extremely impressed if you can decisively, systematically, logically, and historically tear down the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html which supports the notion that Messiah has already come.

Again, I do not understand why you seem to think these arguments have never been offered, or answered, before. Chr*stians have advanced these arguments, and Jews have answered them, for 2000 years. Do you really think you have discovered a new, unanswered argument?

There is a world of apologetic literature that answers these chr*stian claims. Why don't you see what they have to say? If you are right, you needn't be afraid.

Between what Daniel, Haggai, and Genesis report to be the time of the Messiah, we can triangulate the coming of Moshiach to be early 1st century.

Rashi also agreed Daniel spelled out the time of Messiah ...

He (Jonathan) moreover sought to make a Targum of the Hagiographa; but the voice from heaven came forth and said, "Enough." And why might he not execute a Targum of the Hagiographa? Because the End about the Advent of the Messiah is revealed in it. Rashi says, "In the Book of Daniel."
Megillah fol. 3a

So, since the messiah had to have shown up in the "first century" (when J*sus did), and since the royal prophecies were never literally fulfilled, then these prophecies simply must be figurative and refer to the chr*stian church? I'm not being sarcastic here; I'm asking a sincere question. Because unless one utterly rejects the literal messianic prophecies (the ingathering, the Davidic messiah sitting on his ancestral throne in Jerusalem), there is simply no way these prophecies have been fulfilled yet (in which case it is not Daniel, or Rashi's interpretation of Daniel, but your interpretation of Daniel (and of Rashi) that is at fault.

BTW, just where in Rashi's vast writings does he ever say that the messiah came a thousand years before he was born?

“The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts.”
Haggai 2:9 Soncino Tanach / Old Testament

What did God mean about “give peace” in the 2nd Temple, if it meant not the coming of the Messiah?

There was "peace" during the time of the Second Temple? Doesn't that make Zerubavel the messiah? For surely there was more peace prior to J*sus' coming than there was after. Unless you have an extremely non-literal interpretation of the word "peace."

“The staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the scepter from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the obedience of the people be.”
Genesis 49:10 Soncino Tanach / Old Testament

It was whilst the 2nd temple still stood that the Talmud reports that the Jewish leaders thought that Genesis 49:10 should be fulfilled. The following are what some ancient Rabbis thought of Genesis 49:10

The transmission of domain shall not cease from the house of Judah, nor the scribe from his children's children, forever, until Messiah comes.
Targum Onkelos

The scribes still have not ceased. They exist today, still doing their work. And until a few hundred years ago the Rabbinic courts still had the power to inflict the death penalty, even in exile. By your definition, didn't "domain" cease once before, when Israel was carried away into exile by Nevuchadnetzar? In which case, the messiah should have come at that time (the Temple was destroyed and the offerings ceased at that time also).

Rabbi Johanan said, ‘The world was created for the sake of the Messiah, what is this Messiah’s name?’ The school of Rabbi Shila said, ‘his name is Shiloh, for it is written, until Shiloh comes. (Genesis 49:10)’
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b

The sages also said that the world was created for Israel and for the Torah.

Kings and rulers shall not cease from the house of Judah…until King Messiah comes.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan

Wasn't Tzidqiyahu the last Davidic king, long before the time of J*sus?

UNTIL SHILOH COMETH; this alludes to the royal Messiah. AND UNTO HIM SHALL THE OBEDIENCE (YIKHATH) OF THE PEOPLE BE: he [the Messiah] will come and set on edge (makheth) the teeth of the nations of the world.
Midrash Rabbah, Genesis XCVIII. 8

Kings shall not cease from the house of Judah...until the time of the coming of the King Messiah...to whom all the dominions of the earth shall become subservient.
Targum Yerushalmi

Since the destruction of the 1st Temple in 587 BC, the Jewish people though continuously occupied by a “lawgiver from between his feet”, were always given by their conquerors the option of wielding the “scepter” for executing whoever they esteemed worthy of death according to the Law of Moses.

The Temple was not destroyed in "587BC." It was destroyed in "422BC." If you were ever an Orthodox Jew surely you would know this.

According to Josephus, the ascension of the Roman Procurator Caponius in the early 1st century also marked the end of the Jewish option of wielding this scepter.

It was wielded again during the Middle Ages when the chr*stian powers occasionally allowed the Jews to execute capital punishment. If the government allowed it it could be done today (chayyav mitah bazeman hazeh).

And now Archelaus' part of Judea was reduced into a province, and Caponius, one of the equestrian order of the Romans, was sent as a procurator, having the power of life and death put into his hands by Caesar.
Josephus

The aforementioned eyewitness report by the 1st century Jewish Pharisee Josephus is corroborated by the following quote from the Talmud:

A little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the power of pronouncing capital sentences was taken away from the Jews.
Josephus

The relevant question is, now that we've established that “Shiloh” is an idiom for “Messiah,” as well as the fact that the “scepter” had been struck from the hand of Israel by the “lawgiver” Caesar, did the Jewish leaders recognize the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10?

They did, and they recorded it in the Talmud.

When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them: they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: 'Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come.'
Rabbi Rachmon

For a fuller discussion with references on historical corroboration of the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10, please visit http://www.direct.ca/trinity/shiloh.html.

So, the ancient Sages of the time knew that J*sus was the messiah . . . but didn't become to chr*stians? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense. If they "knew" J*sus was the messiah they would have followed him. Since they didn't follow him they didn't believe he was the messiah. How can you invoke the ancient Sages to prove J*sus was the messiah if they themselves didn't believe this?

7) The Torah foretells periods of destruction and exile when the sacrifices cannot be offered (these are always punishments for abandoning the Torah, not for "rejecting the messiah").

P>Sir, I respectfully disagree.

You've never read the Torah? See below.

Our rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the western most light shine
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39b, Soncino Version

The crimson colored strap supernaturally became white when God accepted the sacrifice made by the Jewish priests for the collective sins of Israel. God stopped manifesting this miracle, according to the Talmud 40 years before the destruction of the 2nd temple. The 2nd Temple was destroyed in 70A.D. 70 minus 40 years means 30A.D. is precisely when the punishment of God refusing Israel's sacrifices started.

I was referring to those two portions of the Torah which contain all the fearful punishments awaiting Israel (including exile from the Holy Land and the concomitant absence of Temple offerings). These are Parashat BeHar (Leviticus 25:1-26:2) and Parashat Ki Tavo' (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8), both of which thunder with warnings about what awaits Israel if they stray from the Torah. There is not a hint of "rejecting the messiah." You have read these portions, correct? Why would HaShem threaten such terrible things for straying from the Torah and then turn around and punish them for refusing to see that the Torah had ceased to be valid (G-d forbid!)?

One must ask themselves: What happened in 30AD for God to punish the Jewish people by refusing their sacrifices? The answer is, the Jewish leaders began publicly insulting the ministry of Jesus Christ (“Anointed Savior”).

Are these the same Jewish leaders who you say knew that J*sus was the messiah? And btw, pointing out that the name Yehoshu`a means "savior" and that the word christos is Greek for "anointed" does not make J*sus of Nazareth the messiah. The anointed high priests and kings were anointed (and thus "messiahs" in the literal sense) and everyone named "Yehoshu`a" is named "savior."

The [Jewish leaders] said, 'He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.'
Matthew 9:34

And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
Mark 3:22

Now you're arguing from a book whose authority I do not recognize. Could I convert you to mormonism by quoting the "book of mormon?" And I point out again that these Jewish sages whom the NT says made this charge against J*sus are the very ones whom you seem to think really secretly believed he was the messiah after all.

On the off chance you believe that the Jews didn't kill Jesus on the charge of claiming to be God, and rather the Romans did, here are the words of Maimonides in his “Letter to Yemen”.

Jesus of Nazareth... impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.
Maimonides

Maimonides was right. J*sus was guilty of blasphemy and according to the Torah should have been put to death by strangulation. As you have pointed out, the Jewish authorities could not do this at that time, so he was turned over to the Romans who crucified him, with the result that--surprise, surprise--he died of strangulation.

Again, the exact year the Talmud reports the punishment having begun, is the exact year that Yehoshua Ha Mashiach arrived on the scene, performing miracles, and proclaiming the “Kingdom of Heaven” is “at hand”.

So when does it get here??? Seriously.

8) And when the real Mashiach comes it will not be subject to debate but a fact that no one on earth will be able to deny. So long as we're debating, then he hasn't come.

Deuteronomy 18:19 makes it perfectly clear that people will have a choice to follow Messiah or not. Isaiah 53:1 shows that reports of the Messiah's coming will be doubted.

The verse in Deuteronomy you mention is the commandment to listen to a prophet. I have replied to the claim that the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53 is J*sus--or even the messiah at all--above.

For 15 prophecies that foretell the rejection of Moshiach, please see http://messiahrevealed.org/rejected.html.

Fifteen prophecies, like all the others, that have been raised and answered thousands of times during the past two millenia.

The fact that people reject Moshiach, does not negate from his authenticity at all. In fact it proves it, since His rejection was foretold, and the Word of God does not lie, because only it says what happens before it happens with accuracy and specificity.

When Mashiach comes and people reject him, all will know (including the rejecters themselves) that it is indeed Mashiach they are rejecting. And Mashiach will wage war (literal war) against them, compelling them to either submit to him or be killed.

And again, your standard of determining what constitutes Scritpure is mistaken. The Torah, the initial and ultimate Revelation, was not accepted at Sinai because it correctly predicted future events but because (unlike ever other alleged "divine revelation" in history) it was delivered to Israel by G-d Himself, publicly, to an entire nation of people (which counting women, children, and the `Erev Rav (great mixed multitude) may have numbered three million people. Every other religion in world history was founded by a human being ("incarnate gxd" or not) who claimed to speak for (or to be) G-d. Only the Torah was given publicly and objectively by the invisible G-d to an entire nation of people. It never happened before; it has not happened since; it will never happen again. This is the basis of Scripture, and this is why Torah is the Ultimate Revelation which sits in judgment on all prophets and revelations to follow.

9) I take the following quote from your post 8 in the vanity I posted, “It did not take chr*stianity to discover that we all sin. Even before man was created the ground sinned when G-d told it to bring forth `etz peri `oseh peri and instead it brought forth `etz `oseh peri. The universality of sin is not a chr*stian discovery.”

It did not take chr*stianity to discover that we all sin.

True. For the Jewish doctrine of Original Sin, please see ...

--SNIP--

Thank you for acknowledging this. My point was that many chr*stians seem to think that only chr*stianity recognizes the universality of sin, therefore only chr*stianity sees the world as it is (and is therefore the one true religion). But as you and I know, Judaism recognized this long before chr*stianity ever existed, and claimed to have the antidote (repentance) all along. No new religion was necessary. If it's new it ain't true, if it's true it ain't new.

But surely you aren't going to switch gears now and claim that because Judaism recognized this truth it was ipso facto predicting chr*stianity, are you? That would be quite an argument. If Judaism recongizes original sin then it is recogning the truth of chr*stianity, and if it doesn't recognize original sin its inadequacy is proven! (And btw, Eastern Orthodoxy, one of the oldest forms of chr*stianity, explicitly rejects "original sin," claiming it is a concept derived from Greek paganism.)

“Even before man was created the ground sinned”

Pulling out my trusty electronic Soncino Tanach,

Are you sure you don't mean your "Handy-Dandy Soncino Tanach?" ;-)

which for those of you not graced with a nominal Jewish upbringing as I was, is an English Old Testament translated by Jews for Jews circa 1960-1963, we read ...

... and fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:11-12

Pushback #1 to “ground sinned”) If the ground or trees disobeyed in Genesis 1:12, meaning the 1st sin came before the fall in Genesis 3, why would the Bible also report in Genesis 1:12 that, “God saw that it was good.” Was God blind to this sin by the ground? Put another way, if sin did not get introduced into creation when Adam and Eve's partook of the forbidden fruit, why did God only curse Adam, Eve, and serpent in Genesis 3 *after* the fiasco in the Garden of Eve?

Pushback #2 to “ground sinned”) What kind of tree yields fruit other than a fruit tree? This “ground sinned” theory makes it sound like God commanded fruit, and for all intents and purposes, got fruitbats. Functionally, what is the difference between what God commanded, and what he got in Genesis 1:11-12? Could it be possible the person who came up with this theory is inadvertently making God out to be impotent, just for the sake of opposing Original Sin as a Biblical doctrine that began with Adam and Eve's sin?

Pushback #3 to “ground sinned”) Do you have any idea when this interpretation was birthed? I would draw some comfort that it was brought forth in good faith if it could be verified that it pre-dates the time of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ.

(Parenthetically, calling J*sus Chr*st by the Hebrew transl(iter)ation of his name does not make him the messiah. Why would anyone think that it does?)

The midrash about the ground sinning was called forth by a problem in the text. G-d commanded the ground to bring forth `etz peri `oseh peri (trees of fruit yielding fruit), while the Torah says that the ground brought forth `etz `oseh peri (trees bearing fruit). Traditionally, G-d commanded that the earth bring forth trees of fruit--trees which would have themselves been fruit, tasting exactly like the fruit they bore. Instead the ground brought forth merely trees bearing fruit. The trees were not fruit themselves (in part for this the ground was cursed when G-d spoke to Adam after his own sin).

To understand why the simple change of phrase by the omission of one word would be a problem, one must recall that the Torah is not merely inspired writing--it is the very Word of G-d Himself. It was written by G-d 974 generations before the creation (being what you chr*stians call the "logos") and the universe was created to fit it. Every single word, letter, and stroke of the scribe's pen is loaded with meaning. If a word is used in the first phrase and omitted in the second, there is a reason for it. It isn't a meaningless coincidence. The presence of the extra word "fruit" in "trees of fruit" in the first phrase which is missing in the second phrase means that G-d commanded the ground to bring forth "trees of fruit bearing fruit" but instead got only "trees bearing fruit."

The same factor explains the midrash about the moon being reduced in size after being created of equal size to the sun. In Genesis 1:16 it says that G-d made "the two great lights" (shenei hame'orot hagedolim), but then describes them as "the great light" (hama'or hagadol) and "the little light" (hama'or haqaton). At first both lights are described as "large," but then suddenly one of them is large and the other is small. Why does the Torah say this? The midrash is that the moon was jealous of the sun, saying "it is impossible for two monarchs to wear the same crown." For this reason her light was reduced, but she was given a greater host (the stars) in order to mollify her. And it is because HaShem reduced the moon that Israel was commanded to bring a sin offering (chatta't) on each day of Ro'sh Chodesh (the new moon): to atone for His having reduced the moon!

I notice that you have neglected to mention the really important point I made in this section of my argument: that G-d Himself gave man his evil inclination. This is adduced from the extra yod in the word vayiytzer in Genesis 2:7. Again, there has to be a reason the Torah uses an extra, "superfluous" yod; it can't really be superfluous or G-d wouldn't have put it there. This is an example of remez (one of the four senses that make up PaRDeS).

The point to all this is that everything in existence--even evil--has its ultimate source in G-d. There is no other creator. There is no "evil gxd" who came along later and messed up a good creation made by the "good G-d" (that would require two "gxds"). As I said (something else you have ignored) G-d created the Satan and gave him his duties. G-d created a world that was imperfect even before Adam's sin so that it could be corrected and perfected by observance of the Torah. This was so before Adam's sin, and remains so after Adam's sin. Though the first sin affected terrible changes in human nature and in the universe itself, man's relationship afterwards--just as before--was primarily statutory rather than salvational in the chr*stian understanding.

10) All theories of "progressive revelation" are inherently unprovable. If revelation "progresses" from lower to higher, where does it stop? I know you will say with the "new testament," but that is arbitrary on the part of chr*stians. If revelation "progresses," why shouldn't chr*stianity be superseded by islam, which would be superseded by sikhism, which would be superseded by bahai, which would be superseded by something new to come along? When would it ever stop? Judaism, alone of all the religions of the world, is the only one that identifies the first revelation as the supreme one, while every other religion has to claim a "progressive" revelation until it comes to its own scriptures (at which point it stops, of course).

The reason the progression of revelation continues with the New Testament, is because the New Testament, like the Old Testament, says what happens, thousands of years before it happens with accuracy and specificity. Please see http://www.direct.ca/trinity/evidence.html and http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html for the details. This is what Grant Jeffrey appropriately called, the signature of God. By which you know that you can trust your eternal destiny to the God revealed in the Bible.

Once again, you are missing a very important point. It isn't accuracy of predicting the future that forms the basis of Divine Revelation but the fact that G-d Himself (and I mean the invisible, unincarnate G-d) publicly spoke to three million people at Mt. Sinai, something He never did before and will never do again (let me know if this ever occurs). This is so basic to an understanding of Torah that I begin to wonder if you were not converted from some liberal form of Judaism, or perhaps from irreligion and agnosticism. That would explain why you cannot divorce your belief in G-d from a belief in J*sus (you would have received them both at the same time) and why you are so impressed with arguments that have been made and answered for two thousand years.

Why does the progressive revelation continue through the New Testament and cease with Islam et. al.? The writings of Islam don't tell the future with accuracy and specificity the way the Bible does. Devils and men can't do what you bear witness to at the aforementioned links. Only God can. All you have to do to dismantle my response to your point, is tear down the evidence at the above links, and my responses which follow your challenges, and this case falls apart.

Why does not the revelation continue with Sikhism, Bahaiism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnessism, and Scientology? They don't predict the future as only God does in the Bible. The signature of God is not in their writings as demonstrated in the above links. God did not write them.

While it is true that one method of testing the prophets is whether or not their predictions come true, I cannot stress enough that this is not the foundation on which Revelation rests. I have elucidated this above. Moreover, you are ignoring two very important points:

1)All prophecy, even by true Prophets, contains an element of contingency. G-d always has the option of "repenting" and withholding a promished chastisement (or blessing) depending on how the prophecy is received. Jonah's prediction that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days (which G-d didn't do because the Ninevites repented) is one example.

2)False prophets may very well make predictions that come true--even though this would seem to supernaturally confirm their authority. This is spelled out very clearly in Parashat Re'eh (Deuteronomy 13). There it explicitly states that "if a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises from your midst and gives you a sign or wonder ['ot; mofet]; and the sign or wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying 'come and let us walk after other 'gxds' whom you have not known and follow them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams because HaShem your G-d is testing you to know whether you truly love HaShem your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul." The very next verse states "after HaShem your G-d you will walk and Him shall you fear, and his commandments shall you keep, to His Voice you will hearken, Him you will serve, and to Him you shall cling."

Here we have a case of a genuine "prophet" who gives "signs and wonders," the "signs and wonders" actually come to pass, and this is a genuine supernatural phenomenon brought about by G-d Himself. And how are the people to react? They are to completely ignore the prophet and his supernatural phenomena and keep following the Torah. I don't know how much more plainly this could be laid out. This is a commandment in the Torah by which each and every prophecy, sign, and miracle must be judged, even if they come to pass. In fact, their coming to pass is the work of G-d Himself to test His people, and His commandment is that they ignore this prophet and his genuine supernatural signs and wonders and stick with the Torah.

Even the first revelation of Judaism promised the Messiah, and Christianity is the fulfillment of that promise.

Only for those who believe this already.

Islam claims that Christianity is true but that it was corrupted, thus leaning on the truthfulness of Christianity for credibility. Exactly as chr*stianity leans on the Revelation at Sinai for credibility, all the while claiming that it has been "corrupted" by scribes and pharisees.

Mormonism and Russelism do the same thing, leaning on Christianity as true.

See above.

Their founding premise, like that of Islam, is that Christianity is true, but has been corrupted over the years.

Again, see above.

All this, despite Psalms 12:6-7 and Jesus' claim that “my words will not pass away”.

Psalm 12 only refers to J*sus if you already believe the claims of chr*stianity. And as for J*sus claiming his revelation is eternal, the Torah also claims to be eternal. If the words of the Torah aren't sufficient to establish its eternity--if their obvious literal sense must be discarded in view of the "plain truth" of the "superior revelation," then you are a hypocrite for not following the exact same logic with the words of J*sus. Like Torah, he claimed his teachings were permanent, but revelation being "progressive," they simply "must" be discarded in favor of the "higher" revelation. And moslems are hypocrites for wanting progressive revelation to end with their "qur'an" as well. Once the principal of "progressive revelation" is admitted there is no stopping point; only hypocritical claims that "my revelation is the final one."

And if you do not see the claims of the Torah to eternity--the many assertions that these commandments are to be kept "forever"--and if you do not see that your criticism of islam for not accepting J*sus' words that his religion is eternal is identical to my criticism of you for not accepting the Torah's words that it is eternal--if you do not see that you are making the identical claim the moslems make, and that it is as groundless for you as it is for them, then you are simply too blind, too hypocritical, or too dishonest to have this conversation with.

11) Finally, I take the following quote from your post 23 in the vanity I posted, "And unlessyou're implying that since the sacrifices cannot be carried out at this time that the Torah as (sic)"expired" (G-d forbid!). First, the Torah itself predicts exile (during which sacrifices cannot be brought)--never as a punishment for "rejecting the messiah," but always and only for straying from the Torah itself.

I have already laid out the ...
A) ... case for the messiah having come in the past.
B) ... case for the rejection of the Messiah.

You have made the same arguments that chr*stians have made for two thousand years, and which Jews have answered for two thousand years. You have proved nothing.

If the Messiah is God himself, then rejecting the Messiah would be rejecting God himself. Please see http://www.yourarmstoisrael.org/misc/pdf/The%20New%20Updated%20Messianic%20Believers%20First%20Response%20Handboo..pdf for the case for the systematic and deliberate erasure of the divine name, YHVH, from the received Masoretic text at least 134 times, specifically in cases where one could infer the Messiah to be God.

I believe I have already explained the extreme reverence with the Jewish scribal tradition has for the Bible, how every verse, word, and letter is carefully catalogued, and how even apparent "mistakes" in the text are never corrected. This makes any assertion of tampering as you describe (to say the least) highly unlikely. Other than this, what you suggest is a people who knew they were supposed to accept J*sus but didn't out of . . . what? Pure evil? That would make them "the serpent race" of anti-Semitic mythology, wouldn't it?

If the Jewish sages had believed J*sus were the messiah, they would have followed him. If not before, then certainly after his "resurrection." What motivation would a people have to know the truth and reject it anyway other than being the evil "serpent race" of anti-Semitic imagination? I'm sorry, but your argument that the ancient Jewish sages knew J*sus was the messiah at some point but still didn't convert to chr*stianity simply makes no sense at all.

Thus, Israel rejected God, and thus his Word, Jesus Christ, when they rejected their Moshiach.
The Brief Case For Christianity:
1) http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. If you disagree, please tell me what exact sentence your disagreement begins.
2) http://messiahrevealed.org/category-index.html
I don't require a response to all 300+ fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy in the life and times of Jesus Christ.

I have explained in my replies above that Judaism is based on the Torah, not the messiah. The messiah is the servant, not the master, of the Torah ("Moses is the father of all wise men, those who came before, and those who come after;" this includes the messiah). I have also explained that there are alternative interpretations that make much more sense when the truth of chr*stianity is not assumed from the outset. There is simply no need to respond to each and every argument when 1)they are based on the faulty assumption that the messiah rather than the Torah is the heart of Judaism, and 2)others far more learned than I have been answering these arguments for two thousand years and have done so far better than I ever could. I have demonstrated above that Torah is absolute and sits in judgement on all prophets and "messiahs.' How do you answer that without making the very same argument the moslems make against chr*stianity--that Judaism was "true once" but became corrupted, that while on the surface it seems to claim eternity this must be rejected in light of a later, "higher" revelation? You can't do it.

If you could show me a verse in the Tanach / Old Testament where it says the Messiah must accomplish all in one visit, or a verse where it says the Messiah can't do all in two visits, I will be impressed to no end. I have compassed the Tanach many times, and I have not seen it.

What's this? You've been invoking PaRDeS every time I point out that chr*stianity is not the obvious, surface teaching of the Hebrew Bible but now suddenly you reject it and refuse to accept any meaning not on the surface of the text? Oh yes . . . that's consistent! Besides--the argument from silence is a pretty weak argument. On top of all that is the fact that until very recently all chr*stians believed that all the messianic prophecies were fulfilled metaphorically ("spiritually") rather than literally two thousand years ago, with no messianic prophecies awaiting the "second coming."

None of us has the time to instantly and expertly answer every point brought up in this forum. I am patient for an excellent response from you, about this most important of matters.

Your task, “if you choose to accept it”:
1) Show me how I err in my statements questioning Noachidism (sp?), as presented.

You ever read Genesis 9? Are you going to throw PaRDeS under the bus again after making it one of your main arguments earlier?

2) Tear down the Brief Case for Christianity I have made in the above two points.

You know something? I've pointed out several times that these supposedly irresitable arguments of yours have been around for two millenia and have not only failed to convince but been answered by people far more learned than I. I also realize that my arguments in response to chr*stianity have been around just as long (though I honestly believe that most chr*stians have not heard them) and over the millenia they have failed to convince the great mass of chr*stians that they are wrong in believing that J*sus is the Jewish messiah (there have been, here and there, individual Jews and chr*stians who have been swayed by these arguments and crossed over to the other side, but nothing en masse).

If you believe that this argument is going to be permanently and finally settled for all time by the you and I arguing here on Free Republic then you have an inflated sense of the intellect and importance of both of us. We will be debating these things until Messiah comes for the first time (as I believe) or for the second time (as you believe). How anyone could possibly think he had the unanswerable argument in a dispute that has occupied the finest minds in two religions for two thousand years is beyond me.

Be well. And please . . . be a little more realistic in your expectations!

Hello ZC,

I hope you are doing fantastically.

For the benefits of anyone else who stumbles on this post. I will continue the typeface convention

1) Your postings in response to my vanity are in bold.

2) Your original vanity is indented and italicized.

3) My first extended response to your original vanity is italicized.

4) Your first extended response to my response is in un-italicized Times New Roman.

5) I will use underline for this second extended iteration of the conversation.

I will now respectfully draw your attention to the fact that the type in this sentence, is underlined. This means this is me speaking in this post in response to your last post, per the last point in the previous list.

You will also notice as you read this response, that I have deleted some of your words and paragraphs from your previous post, for which I had no response. I did not do this out of disrespect. I just didn't have anything to say. You are more than welcome to highlight this in any forthcoming response to this post, and rephrase your point even more creatively, such that sparks and lights would be set off between my ears, and I might apprehend what you seek to illustrate.

Also, I will continue to say “Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach” or “Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ” so that should any Jewish people wander in here, they would know precisely who we are speaking of.

Finally, let’s pray: God in heaven who made all things, please help us seek you and find you as we look for you and learn about you in these scriptures. Let us readily admit our mistakes as we make them, remembering the humility of Moses after we make them, before the host of heaven, and you.

Let's begin.

Note carefully: my imperfection, and the imperfection of every human being, is not an original discovery of yourself, nor does it in and of itself vindicate your religious beliefs.

It would depend on the quality, and frequency of the imperfections discovered in this essay. If you conclude that gentiles should be Noachides, and you use faulty premises to build up the case for such, and faulty premises to tear down Jesus Christ as Messiah and God, then, with respect, you would be in error sir.

Here I am afraid you have misunderstood my point. It is not that my case may be undermined by the mistakes of my presentation (though that is certainly true; any apologist for any religion may inadequately make his case and thereby create the impression that his position is wrong even when this is not the case). My point was that many chr*stians assume that the very fact that all men are sinners proves, in and of itself, that chr*stianity is true. For example, your personal FReeper page seems to make this argument: "have you ever committed a single, solitary sin in your life? Are you less than perfect? Then you must accept Chr*st or be eternally damned." That all men are sinners, are less than perfect, is not an original observation of chr*stianity, nor does it in and of itself prove the claims of chr*stianity. And on top of that, it isn't even the argument of the older versions of chr*stianity. Roman Catholicism, for example, argues for "Purgatory" in part on the grounds that "most people are not good enough for Heaven or wicked enough for Hell." So your antinomian, all-or-nothing approach to perfection isn't even universal in chr*stianity (and is unknown to the ancient churches).

My words in this round will be in underlined Times New Roman. As I look at what I type it looks a good deal angrier than I actually am. I went to church today, focused on the loving graceful treatment I have received from the Lord, because I was re-listening to a sermon on how in the 1^st century, Christians used to effectively evangelize, because they truly loved God.

They used to fight each other to see who would get to die next for the glory of God in the Circus Maximus (remember where the chariot scene in “Ben Hur” was held?). Those Christians, they loved God so much, and were so grateful for the opportunity to know Jesus Christ so much, that all Romans knew of this, and when these Romans went to the Circus Maximus, and saw the loving joy in these Christian's eyes, would jump out of the stands and also die in the arena right on the spot. For every Christian they killed, seven Romans would die also during the spectacle.

So, please don't think that as I type this, that the underlining has anything to do with impatience or anger on my part. I just needed a clear way to set apart this round of the discussion from the rest. I also won't be offended when you use bold for your next response, should you have one.

I hope you have a great one.

I do not currently believe that the fact that men are sinners does not, in and of itself prove Christianity true. If God is holy, and he is, and demands justice for all sin, and he does, the need for payment of sins would be established. But if God is holy, then why indeed necessarily Christianity? So I agree on this point, that the fact men are sinners does not perforce make the faith of Jesus Christ true.

Since most who run across my FR homepage will be Westerners with a Christian mindset, calling such a person "to God" naturally means "Jesus Christ". It's brief, and the target audience gets it. It is not meant for Jewish people though they are welcome also, or Noachides such as yourself.

Having seen this kind of discussion before, I specifically used the Soncino Tanakh (a modern translation of the received Old Testament Hebrew made by Jews for Jews), and tried to stick to Jewish sources to back up my points, to avoid even the possibility of your objecting to the authority of the New Testament, or the authority of Christian translations of the Tanakh / Old Testament. If I use any other translation going forward, I will clearly spell it out.

The question at hand is, is the 1^st century person of Jesus Christ, the messiah promised by God throughout the Tanakh / Old Testament, or is he an impostor? I am not interested in the many churches, the many un-biblical doctrines they hold, or their crimes. Just as your imperfection does not in and of itself undermine the case for Noachidism (sp?), the foolish handling of the New Testament scriptures by professed Christians, including “Catholics” does not interest me. Since you don’t believe Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ is Messiah and YHVH, your taking exception to doctrines of a faith you believe invalid is clearly a waste of time.

In brief response to the claims of Catholicism: The New Testament scriptures themselves are older than the Roman Catholic church. I have a list of reasons why Roman Catholicism is not the faith described in the New Testament. For the benefit of this discussion, unless you insist with excellent reasoning I have not considered, we will avoid the discussion on the inerrancy and authority of the New Testament, and why there are a thousand protestant-isms, or a handful of churches with a grandly dressed “His Holiness” at it's helm, and stick to whether Jewish sources point decisively to the Jesus Christ of the early 1^st century who inspired the writing of the New Testament.

Wow. It took so long to type that, I actually feel older now that I am done. I hope you ZC are doing better!

Before we begin: As a founding premise for everything I say in response to your essay, the Tanakh, which Christians call the Old Testament, is the very inspired, inerrant, Word of God. The evidence supporting this notion is at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. The Tanakh / Old Testament is the Word of God, because it says what happens, thousands of years before it happens with accuracy, and specificity not seen anywhere else. Devils and men can't do this. Only God.

If you don't accept the above as evidence for the Tanakh / Old Testament being the inspired, inerrant Word of God, then I thank you for reading as far as you have.

The inspiration of the "old testament" does not rest, at bottom, on mathematical evidence (though there is much evidence encoded in the Torah itself). The Torah Oral and Written (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) was given by G-d to Israel at Mt. Sinai. Of all the books of the Bible, only the Torah was written directly by G-d Himself. It was not written by any human being (not even Moses) under Divine inspiration. Moses was merely a stenographer. The five books of the Torah are therefore also the only Biblical books that were never canonized by a human authority. No canonization was ever necessary, because it was the direct revelation of G-d.

The Prophets and Hagiographa, however, were written by men (under Divine inspiration) and had to be canonized by competent Torah authority. The Nevi'im (Prophets) were written under the spirit of Prophecy (Nevi'ah), which is a step below the direct Divine authorship of the Torah. The Ketuvim (Hagiographa) were written under Ruach HaQodesh (the Holy Spirit, it, Divine inspiration) which is a step lower still. So as the Bible "progresses" the level of inspiration does not increase, but rather decreases. This is so because the first Revelation--the Torah--is simultaneously the ultimate, definitive Revelation. This goes contrary to the notion of progressive revelation held by other religions, but other religions must adopt progressive revelation in order to make the Torah temporary or low-level revelation.

We seem to disagree on how to establish the difference between the Word of God, and the word of man. Fortunately, the Torah itself gives us a recipe for knowing where God has spoken, and where there is a presumptuous scorner pretending to be a prophet:

And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, and the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:21-22

Put another way, when someone speaks in the name of God, and says what will happen before it happens, with perfect accuracy, that person is a prophet sent by God and to be trusted. Thus, God, in Torah, though he spoke to the Jewish people “in person” in the wilderness of Sinai, he told us how we would know we are hearing from him going forward in Deuteronomy 18:21-22.

Therefore, the inspiration of the Tanakh / Old Testament does rest, at bottom, on whether the words spoken by God come to pass or not. When we call it “mathematical evidence,” what we really mean is that we had to use some math to verify what God said through a prophet to be true. The material at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html is simply the application of the words of God, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel to recorded history, to see if their words came to pass according to the test spelled out in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. Their words did. So we know God, who created all, said those things, and we can trust them.

Also, the material at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html very neatly verifies the equal reliability of the words of God dictated to Moses, the words of God revealed to Jeremiah, and the words of God revealed to Ezekiel. Though God spoke to Moses face to face per Numbers 12:10, and God spoke through visions and dreams to all other prophets per Numbers 12:6 and Hosea 12:10, we know that God spoke through Ezekiel and Jeremiah also, per the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. Also, per Psalms 12:7-8, we know that God preserves his words for all generations:

The words of the Lord are pure words; like silver refined in a furnace upon the ground, purified seven times. You shall keep them, O Lord, you shall preserve them from this generation forever. Psalms 12:7-8

I understand you reject the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html on the ground that the 1^st Temple was destroyed in 422 B.C., and not in 587 B.C.. Orthodox Jews reading from the Talmud are the only witness claiming that Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 422 B.C.. Witnesses claiming 587 B.C. include …

Most secular historians, which can be easily confirmed with some searching of the internet.
The prophets Moses, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as outlined in http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html

Deuteronomy 25:14 gives us the Torah principle that we should believe the testimony of 2 witnesses. I believe the aforementioned “two witnesses”, and I accept the wisdom of Torah.

Here are the rest of my objections to everything you said in the two paragraphs above.

You mention a "Torah Oral" "was given by G-d to Israel at Mt. Sinai.", but are you aware of Karaites? They reject the authority of "Torah Oral" for the following reasons are given in a web page titled, "Logical reasons Karaites Reject the 'Oral Law'". I have this on my hard drive, and it has since disappeared from the internet, so I can’t link to it. Fortunately, many of the below are also in the, “Views on the Mishnah” section at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism. I added Exodus 24:12 and Deuteronomy 4:2 from the cited Wikipedia page to this list [List TIF]:
1. Torah never appears in plural in all the Tanakh / Old Testament, only in the singular.
2. The Biblical formula, "And YHWH spoke to XXX" is not in the Oral Law. Only "Rabbi ZZZ said to Rabbi YYY". How could Rabbis comment on Torah at Mount Sinai, as it is being given by God to Moses?
3. 2 Kings 22:8, 2 Chronicles 34:15 report that the written Torah was lost and forgotten and thus unread for 50 years. If the written law was forgotten for that length of time, what makes you think the Oral Law could have been kept in memory for that duration?
4. The "Oral Law" is full of the opinions of Rabbis that contradict one another. Why would God ever contradict himself?
5. Deuteronomy 30:9-10 says that the obedience of Israel to the statutes written, is all that is needed for God to rejoice over Israel.
6. Deuteronomy 31:9 says Moses wrote the law, and gave it to the priests. Again, it was written.
7. Deuteronomy 31:11 says the law was read, implying it was written.
8. Exodus 24:12 says that the commandments are written. Nothing about an Oral Law.
9. In Joshua 1:8 admonishment is given to do all written in Torah.
10. Joshua 8:34-35 spells out clearly that there was nothing commanded by Moses that was not written in the Law, and read to the Jewish people. Had there been an "Oral Law", then all that God commanded could not have been "read" to the children of Israel.
11. Deuteronomy 4:2 which says, “You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish nothing from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
I question the claim that the Prophets (Neviim), and Writings (Ketuvim) are a "step below" the Torah given the "level of inspiration" "decreased" because Moses was a stenographer for the Torah while in the face to face presence of God, and the other Prophets did not relate to Moses face to face. Let me explain. Given what I have already presented with regard to the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html for God saying what would happen before it happened, why would you doubt the accuracy of the words of Torah and the Prophets and Writings as anything less than the preserved words of God? Torah is even corroborated by secular history in this case. Why diminish from Leviticus 26:18,21,24,28 per Deuteronomy 4:2 by denying Torah and the Prophets?
Though you believe that the strongest divine inspiration is behind the Torah, relative to the rest of the Tanakh / Old Testament, do you believe when you say, “So as the Bible 'progresses'”, that God is revealing more about Himself or not? For instance, we know that Deuteronomy 24:1 sanctions divorce, but Malachi 2:16 reveals God hates it. Is this a contradiction in your eyes, or do you see this as more information on who God is?

1A) Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense.

I brought up PaRDes before. As a reminder to all ...

1) Pashat/Literal primary meaning
2) Remez/Hints in the text of something deeper
3) Drash/The added understanding that can only be gleaned by a story, riddle, or parable and the deepest level
4) Sod/Secrets and mysteries, which are mysterious underlying secrets revealed in the text, which can and often do require many hours, weeks, months and in some cases even years to receive, through the diligent study and meditation in YHWH’s Word.

You and I both believe in PaRDeS. Our disagreement is your assumption that the true below-the-surface meanings of the Torah is that chr*stianity is coming. A little later on you will ask where the Jews get this or that teaching (ie, the sin of the ground) and suddenly PaRDeS will seem to slip from your memory.

The question is not whether or not there is PaRDeS, but if PaRDeS, rightly understood, teaches chr*stianity.

I believe PaRDeS to be how scripture is to be interpreted. That being said, it doesn't take much interpretation to conclude from the Tanakh / Old Testament that a Messiah is to be sent per Deuteronomy 18:15, or that a New Covenant per Jeremiah 31:31 and others is to be delivered. It takes some PaRDeS to say that perhaps the Messiah will bring the New Covenant. Applying PaRDeS to Deuteronomy 18:15 and Jeremiah 31:31 opens the door wide to this possibility, especially in light of Malachi 3:1 given …

1) Deuteronomy 18:15 says a prophet will be sent, with a message

2) Jeremiah 31:31 says a New Covenant will be made.

3) Malachi 3:1 says the messenger of the covenant will visit a Holy Temple.

… the aforementioned and more have been fulfilled in the life and times of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ. I will expand on this point fully later in this post in, “Table CITOT”.

Whether Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach is the fulfillment of the promises of the Tanakh / Old Testament for a Messiah and New Covenant, is where you and I respectfully disagree. But we should not disagree with plain readings in the Tanakh / Old Testament that a Messiah, and a New Covenant are forthcoming. You are welcome to believe that the Messiah and the delivery of the New Covenant will be separate events. But the door should be open to both of them happening at the same time.

More specifically, it’s not so much, “if PaRDeS, rightly understood, teaches chr*stianity”, so much as it is, can we read the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament, and through PaRDeS, see that the door is left wide open for who history records as Jesus Christ a.k.a. Jehoshua Ha Mashiach in what we call the 1^st Century of the Common Era.

Not to interrupt, but that you so much for partaking in this discussion! Most rabbis are too boring or have too many kids or are too uneducated to do this for very long. I hope you are getting as blessed by this as I am.

We'll get to the PaRDeS “sin of the ground” situation shortly. Thank you for reading.

... and your response to this PaRDes summary in post 43 is, “PaRDeS assumes the eternal validity of Torah.” But I don't see why this is necessarily the case. Is there some Torah/Tanakh/Old Testament that you could point me to that I might understand why you say this?

Now this is a very interesting position for you to take. You have just argued that the Torah doesn't have to explicitly teach chr*stianity because it is taught in PaRDeS. Yet now you ask me to prove something by the surface sense of Scripture. Do you believe in PaRDeS or don't you? My guess is that you really don't believe in PaRDeS; you believe in the "new testament" when you then retroject into the PaRDeS of the Torah.

I did not demand a surface sense of the scripture. I asked you to point me to “some” scripture. Whether you pointed me to a single verse, or a list of verses, I cared not.

In any case, point withdrawn. There are plenty of verses in the Torah that talk about Torah being “for ever”.

According to Christianity, Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach is the fulfullment of Torah. Put another way, in the vernacular, "My bad".

You don’t have to believe what I just said ZC. Nor did I attempt to prove anything in the previous two paragraphs. I don’t think my view of Testaments Old and New suffers at all if “Torah is eternal.” As another poster said, “[Jesus is Torah]”. I agree.

Before going any further, I would also like to clear up one very important thing. You seem to imply that I reject the chr*stian hell simply because it is unpleasant. The pleasantness or unpleasantness of eternal damnation is not a factor in whether or not this is a true concept. My rejection of the chr*stian hell (the eternal damnation that awaits every soul who does not take advantage of chr*stan salvation) is based on theology, not on the fact that such a place sounds scary.

Now let us look at what you are really doing here, which is 1)assuming the truth of chr*stianity and the "new testament" from the outset and then 2)invoking every mention of She'ol you can find in the TaNa"KH to reinforce this assumption and to "prove" that the TaNa"KH points toward chr*stianity.

The most flagrant example of eisogeting chr*stian salvationism/damnationism onto a place where it plainly does not exist is the quote of David HaMelekh in II Samuel where he says "the travails of she'ol surrounded me" (chevlei She'ol sabbuni) in referring to how G-d ultimately delivered him from his enemies (Saul, the Philistines). David's remark about being surrounded by chevlei She'ol most certainly has nothing to do with the hell of chr*stian theology (the place to which every human being who rejects chr*stian salvation is doomed to spend eternity).

But there is something even more fundamentally at work here. As chr*stians have done for two millenia, you ignore the thrust of the Torah (which is primarily a book of laws) in order to find affirmations of the chr*stian hell--and thus chr*stianity--in every mention of She'ol that you find in the TaNa"KH. This is nothing but eisogeting something already assumed from another source. I wonder why you didn't mention the She'ol in the belly of Jonah's fish.

I will attempt to summarize the above four paragraphs where you were speaking ZC:

You suspect I claimed you resist hell because it is unpleasant.
You suspect I assume Christian doctrine true, and list verses about hell to prove the Christian concept of hell from the Tanakh / Old Testament.
“In what way does any of these quotes imply the eternal hell of those who die without being "saved?"”
I improperly quoted II Samuel 22:6 as a hell proof-text.
The “thrust” of Torah is a book of laws, that is scoured by Christians for specious affirmations of Christian hell and Christianity, when it is not there.
You wonder why I didn't mention the “Hell” in the belly of Jonah's fish.

Answer to claim #1) I simply mentioned that it was unpleasant for the benefit of our audience, whatever of it is left at this time (grin). I did not attempt to impugn your ability to handle unpleasantness. If you say you live in the U.S.A., and pay your taxes, I know you can handle a metric-ton of unpleasantness.

Answer to claim #2) I had to go back to the words in your original vanity that prompted my response to you that hell is scriptural.

Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense. No one goes door to door passing out tracts.

To show you that “soul salvation” is as much Christian as it is Jewish, I will now summarize the Tanakh / Old Testament case for “soul salvation” where the people of God are to witness to the world about God:

Jonah was sent by God on a mission to Nineveh to preach against the city.
Deuteronomy 4:6 God wanted Israel to shine as a light to the world. He placed Israel at the center of the known world between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Daniel 12:2 says the dead rise to everlasting life or contempt.
“Hell” or “Sheol” is a very bad place, which, rifling through my electronic King James Old Testament for what is said about it, is, without quotation marks, low, sad, deep, what the wicked are turned into, what nations that forget God are turned into, a place where one does not want to be left, a place one goes down to, painful, final place for an adulteress and adulterer, where the wise depart from, a place never full, a place that gets larger as Israel disobeys, final destination for the Devil in the presence of all the kings of the earth which can only happen at the end of the world at the end of human history (!), it's a pit, a place where Israel agrees with when disobeying God, a place where Israel debased herself to, death delivers to the lower parts of the earth, and a place where those killed by the sword go to.
Dathan, Abiram and company went directly there when the earth opened up in Numbers 16 when they defied Moses.
In case you missed it in the middle of #4, “Hell” or Sheol is the final destination of ALL the kings of the earth, and the Devil. The only way you could have ALL the kings of the earth in one place with the Devil, is if we are talking about the end of human history.
Deuteronomy 32:22 from my Soncino Tanakh / Old Testament says, “For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn to the lowest part of Sheol, and shall consume the earth with her produce, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” This fire of God's anger will burn from the foundations of mountains, to the lowest part of Sheol.
Tying together #a - #e from the Tanakh / Old Testament, the people of God are to witness by preaching (A), or example (B) about God to the nations, lest they rise to everlasting contempt (C), whereby they go to “Sheol” or Hell, which is a deep, painful place for the sinful disobedient, where the Devil will end up at the end of human history (D), where Dathan and Abiram and company went directly to when the earth opened up and swallowed them in their rebellion (E), which is a place of fire, from the foundations of the mountains, to the lowest “Sheol” (G).

Answer to claim #3) “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.” Daniel 12:2 We must do what God requires to be saved from the “everlasting contempt”.

Answer to claim #4): What II Samuel 22:6 has to do with Christian hell, is it is the “travails of she'ol” that David was delivered from. “Travails” is one of many aspects of hell as we saw in answers to claim #2 part D.

Answer to claim #5): The thrust of Torah is that it is a book of laws. But remember you said that, “Every single word, letter, and stroke of the scribe's pen is loaded with meaning.” What about Numbers 16:30-33 where it says, “But if the Lord creates a new thing, and the earth opens her mouth, and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol; then you shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. And it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split beneath them; And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men who belonged to Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that belonged to them, went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the congregation.” It is not spelled out, but it is definitely a place of punishment, to go into the heart of the earth.

Answer to claim #6): Is that rhetorical? Looking at Jonah chapters 1-2, I see that Jonah went from being cast into the sea by the other passengers of that ship, to being swallowed into the belly of the fish, then says he cried (past tense) out of the “belly” of Sheol, because Jonah had been in Sheol and is now in the belly of the fish again. Then Jonah goes on to say that he past tense got tossed in the sea, and past tense went to the bottoms of the mountains, ... you understand. Jonah died, and went to Hell a.k.a. “Sheol” which is at the root of the mountains.

But even if we couldn't infer that the dead rise to damnation or paradise, Daniel spells it out for us ...

“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.”
Daniel 12:2

Again, the resurrection of the dead is not in dispute here. The resurrection of the dead in the future in no way requires chr*stian belief, since it has been a Jewish doctrine for thousands of years and is believed in by Orthodox Jews (who are not chr*stians) to this day. But before commenting further here I must make a few observations.

First, all prophecy by its very nature carries a sense of contingency. For example, Jonah told the Ninevites their city would be overthrown in forty days--no ifs, ands, or buts. But we all know this was not done because the Ninevites repented. This prophecy was contingent.

Prophecy related to coming punishment does indeed carry “a sense of contingency.” God threatens punishment for rampant sinning, but will relent if people repent.

All other prophecy does not.

The handy part about saying “prophecy carries a sense of contingency” is that it removes any possibility of using prophecy to point to the Messiah being Jesus Christ of the 1^st century. Since one could say, “Jesus Christ was not the Messiah, since the conditions were not all fulfilled for messiah coming.” I address this “prophecy carries a sense of contingency” doctrine more fully in the upcoming Point COGBG.

Whose conditions? Man's or Gods?

I like to think this “prophecy carries a sense of contingency” doctrine is rooted somehow in scripture unrelated to coming judgment for persistent sin. Please tell me what scriptures were used to construct it, and how you used PaRDeS to interpret it.

Secondly (as you probably know), the Book of Daniel is not among the Prophetic books but among the Ketuvim, which means that the contingency is greater and that the book was written under Ruach HaQodesh, not the spirit of prophecy.

Why? Daniel seemed like a remarkable prophet.

He (Jonathan) moreover sought to make a Targum of the Hagiographa; but the voice from heaven came forth and said, "Enough." And why might he not execute a Targum of the Hagiographa? Because the End about the Advent of the Messiah is revealed in it. Rashi says, "In the Book of Daniel."
Megillah fol. 3a

Did anyone consider that the voice from heaven said, “Enough” because a plain reading of the book of Daniel reveals the trials and times of a true man of God, and no Targum is required? Why is the book of Daniel put in the same category as the Psalms and Proverbs, and not with Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah?

Point MOSH1ST: Could the fact that Daniel 9 points to the time of the messiah have anything to do with the decision to move Daniel from the prophets to the writings? Keep in mind Haggai 2:9-10, Genesis 49:10 (please see http://www.direct.ca/trinity/shiloh.html) , also point to the 1^st century arrival of the messiah. Also don't forget that Yoma 39b says that God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jews right when Daniel and Moses point to his arrival. I have made a handy-dandy diagram labeled TOTM to show how unlikely it is that all this is coincidence:

[Diagram TOTM]

Why would the Jewish people preserve the scrolls of Daniel as scripture, if they were simply nice stories about a fictional person? The answer is, they are non-fiction. Who would write fiction, and call them truth, and then translate them into Greek circa 150BC with the rest of the Tanakh / Old Testament under the full authority of the Jewish Priests? The answer is, nobody, since Daniel was a prophet sent by God, and the Jewish people dared not to lose his words.

There are many places where Daniel was allegedly laid to rest. Daniel was a real person.

Thirdly, the messiah is an office (Davidic King) which means that in every generation since David's time there has been at least one person qualified to be Mashiach HaMelekh should Israel and the world merit it.

Scripture only talks about a singular “son of man”, not plural. Likewise, it speaks of …

a branch
a rock
a shepherd
a prophet
a son
a cornerstone
righteous servant (NOT Israel, please refer to the soon to be mentioned “List EOTJ”)
descendant of David
a light

Later in your response you say, “Wasn't Tzidqiyahu the last Davidic king, long before the time of J*sus?” Are you saying here that the Davidic line ended? If so, how is it that you said in the previous paragraph that, “in every generation since David's time there has been at least one person qualified to be Mashiach HaMelekh”.

Surely you don’t mean someone unqualified who does not meet the Davidic standard, right? That would violate Deuteronomy 4:2, and bring the word of God to naught, right?

[Point COGBG “Covenants Of God By Grace”]: Where in the Tanakh / Old Testament does God say that God would give Messiah if Israel and the world merit it? If it's not spelled out literally, please list the verses from the Tanakh / Old Testament, with the succession of PaRDeS reasoning that went into this theology.

I don’t see any precedent in scripture for merit being involved in the delivery of a covenant. Did Adam and Eve merit the favor of God to be placed in paradise having done nothing for 6 days, to rest with God on the 7th? Given the Jewish Doctrine of Original Sin, did Noah actually merit the mercy and grace shown him, or was righteousness counted onto him by faith?

Abraham hid behind his wife's skirt twice, yet God chose him. Did Abram deserve to become Abraham? Israel is told seven times in the Torah / Pentateuch that they are a “stiff-necked” people. See Isaiah 48:4 and Ezekiel 3:6 for more on God's opinion of Israel. Given God's opinion of Israel, what did Israel do to merit being chosen as the object of God's love per Deuteronomy 7:7? The delivery of a covenant by God is always due to God’s grace.

The very first person in history who could have performed this role (ultimate king from the House of David) was Solomon. The messianic redemption ("redemption" meaning as in the Exodus, not as in the chr*stian concept of salvation from sin) could have happened at any time from Solomon until the last possible instant--the end of the year 6000. The messianic age must begin at some time prior to Ro'sh HaShanah 6001 (and this is the year 5769, as you know).

How is this teaching that Messiah must show before 6001 discernible from scripture through PaRDeS?

Parenthetically, I would point out that there were also occasions in the past when the world could have experienced what we today call the messianic era without it even getting to the point where David was born. If Adam had not sinned, if Israel had not built the Golden Calf, and if Israel had not believed the "evil report" of the spies concerning 'Eretz Yisra'el are three such examples.

I am well aware that the Book of Daniel is regularly invoked as having predicted the "first advent" of J*sus. I have not yet conducted a systematic study of it so I don't claim to be able at this time to answer all of your claims.

Please let me help speed you along in your studies of the prophecies of Daniel, with regard to how:

http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html discusses the 69 week, 360 day year interpretation put forth by most Christians, which leaves out the "atnach" in Daniel 9:25.
Isaac Newton, has an interpretation which, unlike the Septuagint parsing done under the full authority of the Sanhedrin by 70 Rabbis with no theological anti-Christian axe to grind, uses the "atnach" in verse 25. But, unlike the 69 week interpretation, Newton’s interpretation utilizes 365 day years. Yes, you in the front row. Yes ma'am, THAT Isaac Newton.
Fred Zaspel has an interpretation which uses the "atnach" in verse 25, and uses 365 day years, and even uses Cyrus, or "Kourosh" for you Persians, as the annointed one. This explanation still points to Jesus Christ, and also answers both major concerns of anti-missionaries at www.jewsforjudaism.org.

Just Google around, and you'll find them. If you can't, ask me, and I'll find them for you. Worst case, I’ll just FReepmail the Fred Zaspel article to you.

Again, not just Daniel, but Haggai 2:10 [(in this house will I give peace)], and Genesis 49:10 [(scepter shall not depart ... until Shiloh)] also point to the 1^st century arrival of the Messiah. Moreover, Yoma 39b in the Talmud indicates that God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people, even though the 2^nd Holy Temple still stood, 40 years before it was destroyed. That was again was precisely the time that Jesus Christ walked the earth. In response to Jesus' presence and claims, the Jewish leaders, in the words of Maimonides, “meted out fitting punishment to him,” because Jesus claimed,“that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer.”

As you know, you and I differ on the fundamental issue of whether the Torah is the ultimate, permanent revelation (which, G-d willing, we will get to later). If this position is accepted, no prophecy can be legitimately interpreted as abrogating it. Your fundamental assumption is that the Torah is temporary, at a low level of a progressively developing revelation (growing ever higher), and apt to be overthrown by any verse in the Prophets.

According to the words of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ, he is the fulfillment of the law. He, in his own words, came not to destroy, but to fulfill. Me repeating the words of Jesus, does not make it necessarily so. But I repeat them so you, and anyone else reading might understand that Jesus Christ claimed to be the fulfillment of the eternal law given to Moses.

Thus, there is no “overthrow” going on in the claims of Jesus Christ. Torah is eternal, just like God said, AND Yehoshua Ha Mashiach claims to fulfill this eternal law.

I don’t know where you get the idea that the Torah is literally eternal. Will Leviticus 17:11 …

For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.

… be needed after Messiah comes, according to your beliefs? Do you really believe the blood of physical animals will be needed for all eternity?

The point I attempted to make in the previous paragraph, is further illustrated by the following Talmud:

It was taught in the School of Elijah, the world will endure 6,000 years - 2000 years in chaos, 2000 with Torah, and 2000 years will be the days of the Messiah. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97a

Back to your words …

…apt to be overthrown by any verse in the Prophets

I don't repeat myself to badger you as a deaf person ZC. I am about to repeat myself for the benefit of the casual reader. God told us in Deuteronomy 18:21-22 how to know when a prophet is sent of God or not. Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach claimed to be the fulfillment of the law.

Furthermore, why would the Torah itself speak of “a Prophet” not “Prophets” in Deuteronomy 18:18, and further punctuate the point with “he” not “they” if the point would not be a unique individual bringing something special?

Let's open my ... handy dandy (grin) ... electronic Soncino Tanakh to Deuteronomy 18:18-22:

I will raise them a Prophet from among their brothers, like you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet, who shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, and the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

What's the point of sending Messiah if it is not to give new instructions? Put another way, do you really believe God would send the Messiah himself just to iterate Torah to the Jewish people? Is not the Messiah a “game changer” as sports fans would say?

Let's look closer at Deuteronomy 18:19 again ...

And it shall come to pass, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

... where people have the option to “not listen to my words which he shall speak in” the name of the Lord. Listening is not mandatory when this Messiah of Deuteronomy 18 arrives.

Furthermore, the “edrosh” which is translated to “require” in both the Soncino Tanakh as well as the King James Old Testament for in Deuteronomy 18:19, is the same Hebrew words sometimes used to connote heathenism, such as in Deuteronomy 12:30. That’s right, ignoring the prophet of Deuteronomy 18, who it is your choice to follow or not, is likened unto heathenism.

Now we turn to the verse in question:

"And many from among the sleepers of the dust will awake, these to eternal life and these to reproach and eternal abhorrence."

The verse you quoted merely affirms the resurrection of the dead (and on the surface level only of Israel) and of reward and punishment. That those who rise to eternal life are the chr*stian "saved," and the others the "unsaved" (in the Evangelical chr*stian sense) is an assumpton imposed upon the text.

It is not imposed on the text. The door is left wide open by a PaRDeS interpretation of the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament, as seen in the CITOT table two paragraphs away, for the events surrounding the life and times of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach.

It might interest you to know that a one of many graduation requirements from some Christian seminaries being giving the Gospel of Jesus Christ using only the Tanakh / Old Testament.

The Christian narrative emerges from the text of the Tanakh / Old Testament once a little “connect the dots” work is done. I didn't have to impose nothing on the text (sic). I didn't even have to try particularly hard to arrange the following:

[Table CITOT]

Prophecy	Scriptures
A prophet whose life would mirror Moses' life,	Deuteronomy 18:15
who would be God himself,	Jeremiah 23:5, Psalm 110, Isaiah 7:14 Isaiah 40:3, Isaiah 9:6, Zechariah 13:7, Micah 5:2
would come during the 1^st century,	Daniel 9:25
when the tribal identity of Israel would depart,	Genesis 49:10
and would bring the “New Covenant,”	Jeremiah 31:31
an everlasting covenant,	Ezekiel 37:26, Isaiah 61:8, Malachi 3:1
and would visit a standing Jewish Temple,	Malachi 3:1
specifically, the 2^nd Temple,	Haggai 2:6-9
would perform healing miracles,	Isaiah 35:5, 42:7
would be a “light” to the Gentiles,	Isaiah 11:10, 42:6, 49:6
a stone laid by God for Israel to build on,	Isaiah 28:16
a sign for the stone would be the priest Yeshua,	Zechariah 3:8, Ezra 3:8, Nehemiah 8:17
that would be a terror to perceive and consider,	Isaiah 28:19
and a stone of stumbling and rock of offense,	Isaiah 8:14
and thus would be rejected by the builders,	Psalms 118:22
despised and rejected,	Isaiah 53:3
whose wounds will be as engravings in stone,	Zechariah 3:9
having his back whipped, his face spat on,	Isaiah 50:6
his face disfigured from beatings and blood,	Isaiah 52:14
pierced through his hands, feet, and body	Psalms 22:16, Zechariah 12:10
and by his wounds, we are healed,	Isaiah 53:5
and he would die,	Isaiah 22:5, Daniel 9:26, Isaiah 53:8, Zechariah 13:7
… and all of our sins are removed in that day,	Daniel 9:26, Zechariah 3:9, Isaiah 49:8
… and then he is resurrected …	Isaiah 53:10
… and returns to God …	Daniel 7:14
... and then the Son of Man is seated at God's right hand.	Psalms 80:17 or 18 depending on your translation. Psalms 110.

If you think the above table drawing the Christian narrative from the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament, is artificially “imposed” on the text, and you also believe that Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach is an imposter, why don’t you lend some credibility to this point by artificially imposing a similarly complex narrative of verses from the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament on any of the 68 false messiahs that have also been declared from the received Hebrew Masoretic text.

Please recall your words regarding Torah ...

Every single word, letter, and stroke of the scribe's pen is loaded with meaning.

... and check out the names, and the meaning of the names of our forefathers in Genesis.

[Table CITT]

Hebrew	English
Adam	Man
Seth	Appointed
Enosh	Mortal
Kenan	Sorrow
Mahalalel	the blessed God
Jared	shall come down
Enoch	Teaching
Methuselah	His death shall bring
Lamech	the despairing
Noah	rest/comfort

I am not actually perceptive enough to have noticed the above. I got it from http://www.direct.ca/trinity/hidden.html .

Do you see through PaRDeS how the Gospel was given in Genesis? God loves you and Jewish people and Noachides so much. He is not willing that you should perish, even now. He has privileged me to show you how much of Jesus Christ was hidden even in the Torah.

Furthermore, the context of my response, was to your claim that, using your words from your original vanity ...

Perhaps the best place to begin is to point out that nowhere in the TaNa"KH (the Hebrew Bible or "old testament") is their a word about "soul salvation" in the chr*stian sense.

...and Daniel 12:2 simply speaks of those who belong to the Lord receiving eternal life, and those who don't eternal abhorrence. The door is left wide open for “eternal life” by any covenant made by God, be it Adamic like Enoch, Noachidic (sp?) which you are more than familiar with (wink), the Abrahamic covenant, Torah to the Jews, and any other covenant made by God to man down the road, even the future Messianic one alluded to but not spelled out, in Deuteronomy 18, and the New Covenant foretold in Ezekiel 37:26, Isaiah 61:8, Malachi 3:1, and Jeremiah 31:31.

The aforementioned verse from Daniel, summarizes, and ties together many verses from the Tanakh / Old Testament. In one of the many caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, there was a papyrus found where Daniel was called the “greatest” of the prophets. Thus I would think it fitting that Daniel would have the privilege of tying it all together.

Dead Sea papyri are not authoritative. Only the authentic, continuous, uninterrupted Jewish tradition of the past 3300 years (as preserved in the authentic Oral Torah and its elucidating literature) is authoritative.

The oldest existing text in the Masoretic textual tradition only goes back to 900 years after Christ walked the earth. The oldest Dead Sea Scroll and Septuagint manuscripts go back at least 1000 years earlier. Both go back before Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ walked the earth. Thus, the notion that they are anything less than objective witnesses to God's word is without merit. Also, the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with the Septuagint against the Masoretic, more often than they don’t. Deuteronomy 17:6 and Deuteronomy 19:15 instruct us that we trust the word of two witnesses.

The scribes that produced the Septuagint translation did so with full sanction of the Sanhedrin for the diaspora Jewish community. The scribes that generated the Dead Sea Scrolls predating Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach, did so without bias against Christianity which they had never heard of.

Keep in mind 68 false messiahs have been declared by readers and users of the received Hebrew Masoretic text.

I will now, in the following list, iterate points I already made in this response. Not because you didn't understand them the 1^st time, but because I'd like to keep you from needing to jump around too much:

The Jewish textual tradition was broken according to the testimony of 2 Kings 22:8, and 2 Chronicles 34:15.
There is no historical record of the Oral Torah in the Torah itself.

If you assume that that tradition has been knowingly and intentionally falsified then we had might as well stop our debate here and now. To alter the holy texts (as claimed by the enemies of Torah Judaism) goes against each and every instinct and teaching. Jews have counted the verses and letters in each Biblical book and are careful to add or subtract nothing. Even apparent "errors" in the text are never corrected.

Indeed, Deuteronomy 12:32 in my King Jimmie, translates the same verse that Deuteronomy 13:1 in my smashing dashing Soncino Tanakh says:

What ever I command you, take care to do it; you shall not add to it, nor diminish from it.

… which agrees with Deuteronomy 4:2.

I will remind you as you read the following text of the Jewish Doctrine of Original Sin. All men are born sinners. I will establish the following four points regarding the character of the Jewish people circa the destruction of the 1^st Temple:

Many prophets were killed by the Jewish people
The leaders were liars, and routinely gave the people bad advice
The people sought deception, and could not stand the truth
The true believers were driven away by the priests

After we establish what was recorded circa the destruction of the 1^st Temple, and the evil that reigned, it would be consistent and rational to assume the same of the people and leaders who presided over the destruction of the 2^nd Temple.

Many prophets were killed by the Jewish people
1. And he said, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword; and I am the only one left; and they seek my life, to take it away. I Kings 19:10 Soncino Tanakh
2. In vain did I strike your children; they received no correction; your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion. Jeremiah 2:30
3. But they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your Torah behind their backs, and killed your prophets who had warned them to turn back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. Nehemiah 9:26 Soncino Tanakh
The leaders were liars, and routinely gave the people bad advice
1. The elder and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail. For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and those who are led by them are destroyed. Isaiah 9:14-15 Soncino Tanakh
2. Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, who rule this people who is in Jerusalem. Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hidden ourselves; Isaiah 28:14-15 Soncino Tanakh
3. The priests did not say, Where is the Lord? and they who handle the Torah knew me not; the rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. Jeremiah 2:8 Soncino Tanakh
4. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, Who say to a piece of wood, You are my father; and to a stone, You have brought me forth; for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us. Jeremiah 2:26-27 Soncino Tanakh
5. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people; You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not punished them; behold, I will punish you for the evil of your doings, says the Lord. Jeremiah 23:1-2 Soncino Tanakh
6. And a spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of the Lord’s house, which looks eastward; and behold at the door of the gate twenty five men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. And he said to me, son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, and give wicked counsel in this city; Ezekiel 11:1-2 Soncino Tanakh
The people sought deception, and could not stand the truth
1. Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men, who rule this people who is in Jerusalem. Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hidden ourselves; Isaiah 28:14-15 Soncino Tanakh
2. That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the Torah of the Lord; Who say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not to us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits; Isaiah 30:9-10 Soncino Tanakh
3. And he said to me, son of man, go, get you to the house of Israel, and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and of a difficult language, but to the house of Israel; Not to many peoples of a foreign speech and of a difficult language, whose words you can not understand. Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you. But the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they will not listen to me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and stubborn of heart. Ezekiel 3:4-7 Soncino Tanakh
4. For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In ease and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; and you did not wish it. But you said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall you flee; and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall those who pursue you be swift. Isaiah 30:15-16 Soncino Tanakh
The true believers were driven away by the priests
1. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people; You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not punished them; behold, I will punish you for the evil of your doings, says the Lord. Jeremiah 23:1-2 Soncino Tanakh
2. Therefore thus says the Lord God to them; Behold, I will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle. Because you have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the weak ones with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad; Therefore I will save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between one lamb and another. Ezekiel 34:20-22

... given all of the above, if I were to claim that the Rabbis that presided over the destruction of the 2^nd Temple, after killing Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ were particularly evil, you should not have a hard time accepting this at all, given the evil that clearly reigned when the 1^st Temple was destroyed. God destroyed the 1^st Temple because of a particularly evil attitude whose character and faces and ways are recorded in the Tanakh / Old Testament for us to reflect on.

God destroyed the 2^nd Temple, because of an evil attitude even worse than the one that prevailed at the first.

Thus we don't need the play by play of who the Jewish people were, codified and preserved in scripture, to know what brand of national character brought about the destruction of the 2^nd Temple. We already have a scriptural record for the destruction of the 1^st Temple.

But we do have some tidbits here and there to confirm what we suspect from the precedent of the 1^st Temple. “The Trial of Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus”. It was last available at http://www.senderberl.com/jewish/trial.htm. It is an article written by Joseph Ehrlich, on the evil that had taken over the Jewish leadership just after the destruction of the 2^nd Temple. He is not a Messianic Jew, not a Christian of any kind. He calls the Jewish leaders of that time evil. He calls for the Jewish people to honor Rabbi Eliezer for his stoic honesty, and to return to God and Torah.

Josephus reported the madness that reigned in Jerusalem in his writings. Apparently, while Titus' Roman legions were chipping away at Jerusalem's defenses before its fall in 70 A.D., the Jewish people were fighting none other than their own selves.

Also, I've already brought up Yoma 39b in the Jewish Talmud, where God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people 40 years before the destruction of the 2^nd Temple in 70 A.D.. This is precisely when Jesus Christ, a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach preached and healed. Maimonides said in his Letter to Yemen that Jesus claimed to be Messiah, and fully intended to replace Torah. Whether you think Jesus' earthly ministry at the precise time God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people in 30A.D. per Yoma 39b was a coincidence or not, the deliberative Jewish man must ask himself what the Jewish leaders were up to, who they were, and what evil they had in their hearts, that God stopped accepting their sacrifices for 40 straight years, right up to the fall of the 2^nd Holy Temple in 70 A.D..

It’s one thing to break Torah. It’s another thing to reject the one who gave Torah, YHVH himself, Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ.

To review the four points I just brought up, I present what I will call here-to-fore, “List EOTJ”:

The Tanakh / Old Testament testifies to the evil of the Jewish leaders and people who lived during the destruction of the 1^st Temple, so it is not unreasonable to assume a similar level of evil when the 2^nd Temple was destroyed.
The Talmud testifies to the evil of the Jewish leaders after the 2^nd Temple was destroyed. According to Joseph Erlich, “Rabbi Eliezer saw that evil had entered the midst of the Sanhedrin which aimed to pollute Torah by having the Sanhedrin remove G-d from center stage and give themselves godly power to rule over the Jewish people for all time...”
Josephus testified to the madness of the Jews living within Jerusalem when it fell in 70A.D..
The Talmud says in Yoma 39b that such an evil had overtaken the Jewish people, that God stopped accepting their sacrifices 40 years before the destruction of the 2^nd Temple in 70 A.D.. It bears repeating that this is precisely when Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ walked the earth.
You claim I am an enemy of “Torah Judaism”. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am an enemy of every false doctrine that exalts itself against the Lordship of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach.

Before we get to what is authoritative Jewish scripture by Torah principles, we should define what Judaism was and is proper.

Torah Judaism, or more specifically Torah Apocalyptic Judaism, is summarized via Torah through the spilling of blood for the atonement of sins per Leviticus 17:11, and the expectation of a Messiah per Deuteronomy 18 which would speak the words of God per verse 18, and people not under compulsion, would have the opportunity to listen or not per verse 19. Moreover, if prophets to come would claim to speak in the name of God, we would know if God spoke through them, if they spoke with perfect accuracy per Deuteronomy 18:21-22.

Deuteronomy 12:31 in my King Jimmie and Deuteronomy 13:1 in my Soncino Tanakh hold a strict warning against adding to, or diminishing from the commands of God. Proverbs 30:6 has a similar warning not to add. In other words, “No add ye!”

We look to the Torah for guidance, in how we can best determine what is the preserved word of God. Turning to Deuteronomy 19:15 we receive guidance:

One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins; by the mouth of two witnesses, or by the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. Deuteronomy 19:15 Soncino Tanakh

This Torah principle is echoed in the Proverbs …

in the multitude of counsellors [there is] safety. Proverbs 11:14

The Rabbinic Talmudist community has pointed accusingly towards the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and impugns their character with expressions like, “not authoritative”, and “deliberate mistranslation.” When in truth, there is more “Torah” reason to believe them, and not the received Masoretic text.

The Septuagint translation commissioned with the full authority of the Sanhedrin well before Jesus was born, by 70 Rabbis with no theological axe to grind against the faith of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ. Put another way, it is a translation by Jews for Jews. Thousands of copies exist.

Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran feature Tanakh / Old Testament scrolls and fragments at 900-1100 years older than the oldest existing Masoretic manuscript. Many of them predate Christian times. They were created by Jews for Jews who considered themselves the true guardians of the faith, given the corruption and wickedness they witnessed firsthand by the priests presiding of the destruction of the 2^nd Temple. Again, if you deny the wickedness of these men, who very obviously received the judgment of God, you deny God’s intervention, as well as the testimony of the men who were eyewitnesses over the destruction of the 1^st Temple.

Pslams 22:16-17 has been doctored form “they pierced my hands and feet” into “lion at my hands and feet”. They took the “vav” at the end of “pierced” and shortened into a “yud”. The reason I dare make such a charge, is because there are 5 witnesses against two that “they pierced” is correct.
1. Witnesses Saying “they pierced”
  1. LXX/Septuagint
  2. Dead Sea Scroll found only in the Psalms scroll found at Nahal Hever (abbreviated 5/6HevPs)
  3. Aquila's first edition, which is best explained as a transposition of letters from "they pierced"
  4. Aramaic Peshita (a.k.a. “The Syriac”)
  5. A few Masoretic texts themselves even have “they pierced”
2. Witnesses Saying “like a lion”
  1. the majority of existing Masoretic texts
  2. The Targum, following the first route, supplies a verb not found in the MT: 'they gnaw my hands and my feet like a lion", but such an ellipsis is incredibly hard and totally unexpected in the context."
Isaiah 53:11 in the Masoretic omits the word “light” after “see”, but we find it in the Septuagint and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. All of Isaiah 52-53 is such compelling testimony that the Messiah is Jesus, that the removal of “light” from the Masoretic was deemed “necessary” at some point.
Exodus 1:5 in the Masoretic says that 70 souls travelled from Egypt to Canaan, while the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls say 75. This was done to make Acts 7:14, which also reports 75 souls, look erroneous to the uninitiated.
Genesis 10:24 is missing generations in the Masoretic, which are present in the Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls, and Luke 3:36.
Jeremiah 10:6-7 is in the Masoretic, but not in the Septuagint nor Dead Sea Scrolls. Just put in there so the Masoretic does not look like it only has deletions relative to the others.
Isaiah 61:1 says “recovery of sight to the blind” in the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls and Luke 4:18, but is missing from the Masoretic.
Psalms 110:5 is a verse quoted by Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach as “YHVH said unto my YHVH, sit thou at my right hand…”. In the Masoretic, YHVH has been replaced with “ADONAI” which subtracts from the divinity of the person at the right hand of YHVH. The name of YHVH has been replaced with “Adonai” from the Masoretic in at least 134 places where the divinity of the Messiah could be inferred, or YHVH taking human form understood. Last I checked, the “Rabbis” at a well-known counter-missionary organization were saying that Psalm 110 is written by a servant of David. This is clearly absurd because:
1. The Psalm itself says it is a “Psalm of David”
2. Psalms 80:17 says, “Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, upon the son of a man whom you made strong for yourself.” Clearly, the “man” at the right hand of YHVH is the “son of man” which is a messianic title.
[Point MIG] In summary, the Septuagint is completely consistent in identifying the identity of the Messiah as YHVH. The slick “cut and paste” job that is the Masoretic text only fools people who don’t know any better, who not by coincidence have never studied the Septuagint, nor the Dead Sea Scrolls. Please look at Jeremiah 23:6, Isaiah 9:6-7, Isaiah 7:14, Micah 5:2, and Zechariah 13:7 for perfect examples of Messianic prophecies that clearly indicate YHVH is to be the Messiah himself.
So if I were to suggest the possibility that the Jewish leadership a mere 40 years before, or 40 years after the destruction of the 2^nd Temple could have tampered with the Tanakh / Old Testament, this should not be outside the realm of possibility for you.

In addition to this there is the unpleasant fact that by claiming that the Jews of the first chr*stian century came to realize their mistake, actually came to realize they were "wrong," and then rather than admit their mistake actually alter their holy books rather than convert you are in essence positing the existence of a people of pure evil.

I don’t know where you got that I claimed any of the above from what you quoted. The first time you wrongfully accused me of this, was in your posting #64. I am going to quote what I wrote in my original vanity in post #63 in red below:

According to the Talmud, 40 years before the destruction of the 2nd temple, God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people, though there was no exile.

At that exact time, Jesus was preaching the Kingdom of Heaven, and performing miracles, and claiming to be God, and Son of Man, ... and called an agent of the devil by the Rabbis.

I think God showed the Jewish leaders of 30A.D. exactly what he thought of their spiritual discernment, and leadership of the Jewish people.

As a reminder, Maimonides’ testimony corroborates the witness of the New Testament with regard to the rejection of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ by the Jewish leadership.

Then, to the above red text, you replied in the bolded text below in post #64 in my original vanity:

So you're saying that the Jews of the time actually knew that J*sus was the messiah but rejected him anyway just out of pure "meanness," like some villain from a stage melodrama? You must think the Jewish people are EVIL.

I will now quote a part of my previous in-forum response to your aforementioned bolded words, in un-bolded red again below:

Jesus claimed to be God, and did Miracles, at exactly the time Daniel and Moses said he would arrive, Daniel’s prophecy illustrated in the link I provided. The Rabbis said he cast out devils by the prince of devils. At the identical time, the Talmud says that God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people.

This is not a coincidence. It is God calling out to the Jewish people and the world, to faith in Yehoshua Ha Mashiach.

Were the Jewish leaders who ordered the execution of YHVH in the flesh a.k.a. Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach sinners above and beyond other men who have held power un-righteously? No. Am I committing a sin by pointing to theirs? No. Am I a racist for saying that they missed the mark? No. I’m simply pointing to all the evidence packed up in the “Diagram TOTM”.

As a reminder, the link to the evidence in Daniel is http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html and the link to the evidence in the Torah transcribed by Moses is at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/shiloh.html.

Furthermore, we already agreed on the Jewish Doctrine of Original Sin. Therefore, we are all born evil. Furthermore, I have already used scripture and Jewish sources to detail how the Jewish leaders at the time of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach were arguably the worst ever. Compare the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Septuagint and the Masoretic. Admittedly the Dead Sea Scrolls only agree with the Septuagint 9 times out of 10. The other 1 of 10 times, they agree with the Masoretic against the Septuagint.

But in every instance where it could be inferred that Messiah would be a physical corporal manifestation of YHVH, the name YHVH has been removed in favor of “Adonai”. Far from being the righteous stewards of the “Masoretic” text you vehemently claim, they actively and deliberately destroyed a measure of its integrity as a means of salvation.

The identical leaders who were blind to Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ a.k.a. YHVH in the flesh, presided over the destruction of the 2^nd Temple. I wouldn’t trust those jokers to wash my car, much less properly identify Messiah. Rabbi Eliezer, and Josephus testify with me regarding their character. Surely you aren’t going to say they were of the greatest minds to grace the Jewish people right?

Why else would anyone knowingly refuse to follow the truth even after admitting it is the truth??? And before you say "obviously, they wanted to retain power over the Jewish people," you forget the point that had they converted they would have probably provided the most prestigious of the clergy of the new religion and would have had similar power there, as bishops and priests have in chr*stianity--plus they'd have it over many more people than before. To refuse this power over the masses of the new religion in order to retain power over one tiny nation doesn't really bespeak power-hunger.

I would say no such thing. I would not dare to assume what people were thinking almost 2000 years ago in a different culture. That's just arrogant man.

Again, if you contend that the Rabbis that presided over the execution of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ were of particularly great quality, you’d have to argue with the testimony of the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament regarding the 1^st Temple as outlined above, as well as the obvious fact that God destroyed the 2^nd Temple shortly after the execution of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach, as well as the obvious witness of the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament that the Messiah would be rejected by his own people per http://messiahrevealed.org/rejected.html.

Also, the point of being a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ is not to be great and served.

I realize that you don’t recognize the New Testament as authoritative. But if you do make erroneous statements about what the faith of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach is, I will correct them with the New Testament if necessary. Here they come:

Neither as being lords over [God's] heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

1 Peter 5:3

But ye [shall] not [be] so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether [is] greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? [is] not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.

Luke 22:26-27

Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:3

You claim to have spent years of your life as a Catholic and Protestant Christian of sorts. But you fail to comprehend one of the basic spiritual drives God puts on a man’s heart as a believer in Jesus Christ. A Christian lives to serve, not to be served, just as Jesus Christ a.k.a. YHVH came not to be served, but to serve.

That you mistake leadership as an opportunity to lord yourself over others, betrays a counterproductive attitude regarding leadership. Opportunities for “leadership”, are actually opportunities to serve those under your command, by equipping them with everything they need to accomplish the team’s goals, and stepping in when necessary.

1B) “No one goes door to door passing out tracts.”

“Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
Jonah 1:1-2

The modern notion of Judaism not being evangelistic, and it's only Christians that evangelize, is an invention. Original Torah Apocalyptic Judaism is evangelistic.

“Keep therefore and do [them]; for this [is] your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation [is] a wise and understanding people.”
Deuteronomy 4:6

In Deuteronomy, we see that God is interested in the nations seeing a great Jewish nation, and coming to faith in their God, the true God.

When you look at a map, you will notice that Israel is the bridge between Africa, and the rest of the world. God centered Israel in the center of the known world, so that it might evangelize to the nations as the nations passed through Israel.

Thus says the Lord, Keep judgment, and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Happy is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it; who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Do not let the son of the stranger, who has joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord has completely separated me from his people; nor let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, who join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it, and all who hold fast to my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel says, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those who are already gathered.
Isaiah 56:1-8

In the above verses, God invites the son of the stranger, and eunuchs to join Israel. The notion that the nations are not to be attracted to, and invited into the covenant God made with Israel, is a modern invention.

What we've got here is . . . failure to communicate!

I am afraid that you have misunderstood my point, perhaps due to my own clumsiness of phrasing. By saying that "no one in Israel went around passing out tracts" I intended to make the point that the Evangelical chr*stian religion, and its concept of "salvation by faith alone" did not exist in those days.

Of course “salvation by faith” did not exist for the covenant given by God through Moses. But Deuteronomy 18:19, Ezekiel 37:26, Isaiah 61:8, Malachi 3:1, and Jeremiah 31:31 either allude to or speak of another covenant, a “new” covenant. Whether this “new covenant” is to be by “salvation by faith” is the question.

I am thus not shocked to see verses in the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament that allude to “salvation by faith”:

Numbers 21:8-9 we read, “And the Lord said to Moses, Make a venomous serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of bronze, he lived.”
1. Comment: All people have to do is look at the serpent, and … believe … that their looking at the serpent will heal them, and they are healed. Seems like an allusion to “salvation by faith” to me.
Habakkuk 2:4, “…the just shall live by his faith.”
Other examples of faith in the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament:
1. Rahab the Harlot had enough faith to hang a cord out the window after covering for Israel’s spies, and was saved from the destruction of Jericho.
2. The citizens of Nineveh were saved when they heard Jonah and believed.

Over and over and over and over again Israel is commanded and warned to observe the Torah--not to "have faith" or "believe in the messiah who is coming to die for your sins and be saved." This is an anachronism which Evangelicals impose on the ancient Israelites.

It’s a “new covenant”, Jeremiah 31:31 says “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers” What makes you think the “new covenant” will be anything like the old? Jeremiah continues saying, “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the Lord, I will put my Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Sounds a lot like the unseen faith in the hearts of Christians the world over.

Again, do you really think the Messiah promised in Deuteronomy 18 who would speak the words of God, would come to coax the Jewish people to follow Torah even more? And given the clear indication in verse 19, don't you see how the door is left open for the space to elect to listen to this Messiah without compulsion? God did not FORCE Israel to choose Torah, he let them choose. The precedent exists for God to let us choose.

I quite agree with you that the ancient Israelites were indeed to be proselytary--though not in the conventonal sense. Though non-Jews were allowed to become full Jews, however, this was never required. From the beginning Israel was destined to be one tiny nation out of all mankind with a unique covenant with and mission from G-d. They are "a nation that dwells alone" and "the smallest of the nations." Israel's mission is to impel the nations of the world to forsake their idols for the One True G-d and to cease and desist from their frightful immorality--in other words, to come to the Seven Laws of the Sons of Noah. While becoming Jewish is permitted for non-Jews, the Seven Noachide Laws are required. And as a Noachide no one is more frustrated at the anti-proselytary, pluralistic, "I'm okay/you're okay" attitude of today's Orthodox Jewish communty than me. (A "Museum of Tolerance?" Really? Is that what Joshua did after slaughtering the Canaanites? He built a "Museum of Tolerance?" Wow! We learn something new every day, don't we?)

LOL! Thank you for the laugh ZC. I was once at a cousin's kid's Bar-Mitzvah, and was accosted by the usher for not wearing a kippah (ritual head covering, “yarmukle” or “Ya-Ma-Ka”). When asked to wear one, on account of being in “a conservative 'schuul'”, I told the man that my Christian faith would not allow me to wear it, and offered to leave, and HE IMMEDIATELY BACKED OFF!

Then I went to a much more liberal Temple, where the praises of O[b]ama were being spoken, and they kicked me out for not wearing one! Amazing! Unfortunately ZC, “Tolerance” is a growing trend amongst Christians also. Let us always remember the zeal of Phinehas in Numbers 25!

Good. So far, I agree that the “Doctrine of Original Sin” is in fact Jewish, and you agree that proselytizing is also a Jewish activity. I'm not saying you agree that the Tanakh / Old Testament points to the 1^st century person of Jesus Christ who inspired the New Testament. I'm just glad that you see obvious and plain matters in the Tanakh / Old Testament, and are not pretending they are not there for the mere sake of not allowing any quarter to me.

2) So each individual must either live an entire life of absolute sinlessness or else face this inevitable fate--unless G-d incarnates Himself as a divine scapegoat to take this punishment Himself on behalf of every single individual.

Again, PaRDes. The sacrifice of innocent animals is a type and shadow for the Messiah which was to come.

Please forgive this observation, but your iconsistent invocation of PaRDeS only as an excuse to eisogete chr*stianity into the Torah (while rejecting it in apparently all other instances) is hypocritical and dishonest.

I object to a PaRDeS “interpretation” if it contradicts the plain meaning of the text. Go back to the claims in Table CITOT where I cite Daniel 9:26, Zechariah 3:9, Isaiah 49:8 and Isaiah 53:6 as scripture backing up the notion that the Messiah will take away the sins of the world.

Your assertion that the qorbanot (offerings) were primarily intended to prepare Israel for the crucified "messiah" is of course what chr*stianity has been asserting for two thousand years. And chr*stians don't seem to understand that their assertion of this theory does not make it so.

You are right. Assertions don’t prove anything. I’m about to repeat myself again, not because of disrespect, but for the sake of the casual listener: Tables CITT and CITOT, shows how the allusions in the Torah and Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament leave the door wide open for the narrative of the New Testament, as I offered in my previous paragraph.

There are other problems as well. For one, while non-Jews are allowed to offer qorbanot (though only the `olah, the "whole burnt offering"), they are not required to do so. Only Jews are required to do so.

Then there is the fact that there are so many different kinds of qorbanot. There are whole burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, thanksgiving offerings, peace offerings, individual offerings, communal offerings, mandatory offerings, freewill offerings, and special offerings for various occasions (such as the qorban Pesach, the Pesach offering). Chr*stianity, especially Evangelical chr*stianity, will find itself in quite a quandary in reducing all these to "shadows to prepare Israel for the messiah who was to be crucified for their sins." What about the fact that the individual chatt'at (sin offering) could only be offered for unintentional sins and were not available for intentional ones? (It was repentance--teshuvah--that, then as now, transforms intentional sins into unintentional ones so that they can be forgiven.) What about the many meatless, bloodless grain offerings?

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

The sins of us all, does not mean some sins, or unintentional or intentional sins. It means all sins, past, present, and future.

Or what about the embarrassing fact that the qorban Pesach, supposedly the "shadow" per excellence, was not a sin offering at all and that if that were the case J*sus should have died on Yom Kippur rather than during Pesach (Yom Kippur, not Pesach, is about atonement). Now it looks like you will have to become Eastern Orthodox (since they reject "atonement" as Evangelicals understand it) in order to identify the qorban Pesach as chr*stological.

Pushback #1 why Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach did not need to die on Yom Kippur: Think about the fact that for the Torah Covenant, the following sequence of events took place:

the slaughter of the Passover lamb
the Exodus from Egypt
the giving of Torah
the mandating of Yom Kippur and all the other holidays

The slaughter of the Passover lamb kicked-off everything in the first place in the Torah Apocalyptic Judaism, and the slaughter of the lamb, and was a shadow for Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ, set into motion everything in the New Covenant.

Put another way, the problem with this challenge, is that you’re putting the cart before the horse, when you allege that the “Passover Lamb” from “step one” of the New Covenant, should die during the time of a holiday mandated in “step four” of the Torah Covenant.

We can take this shadow even further, and say that the murder of Jewish male babies by the Egyptians, was a shadow of the murder of male babies under the age of two prophesied in Jeremiah 31:15, “Thus says the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.” Fulfilled as reported in Matthew 2:18.

Pushback #2 why Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ did not need to die on Yom Kippur: There is a verse in Ezra referring to the “Passover as Our Savior” which is in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and early Septuagint manuscripts. It is missing from the Masoretic text. Are you certain, that you should trust your eternal destiny to this flawed copy of the Tanakh / Old Testament?

And there is one final problem. These qorbanot, according to you, were all given to Israel merely to prepare them for the atoning death of J*sus, yet the one people who were given the lesson didn't learn it, and everyone else (who never had the lesson at all) did! How likely is it that outsiders to whom G-d had never directed his "lesson" would be the ones to "learn" it while the people who actually received it from Him drew very different conclusions?

Four reasons it is very likely:

Isaiah 65:1 answers your challenge saying, “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me; I said, Here I am, Here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name.”
Deuteronomy 32:21 says, “They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” That’s me, card carrying member of a foolish nation of every race, color, and language that loves God, and experiences the love of God, by the grace of God, through faith per Habakkuk 2:4, “…the just shall live by his faith.” Every time I step into my 1st church, I see people from every corner of the world. We are the worst of the world, the “foolish nation” God told you about in Torah. The New Testament expands on this in 1 Corinthians 1:26 saying, “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, [are called]: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, [yea], and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are”
God told us in Isaiah 42:6 and Isaiah 49:6 that Messiah would be a light to the Gentiles. Thus the Gentiles, would have to “get it” to be that light. But to say only Gentiles believe would be error. More descendant of Abraham blood Jews believe in Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ now than ever. More Messianic Synagogues in Israel than ever. I frequent two fellowships of Messianic Jew. Plenty of Jews believe. Some sects of Judaism will admit that Christians do not commit idolatry in worshipping Jesus, because we believe he is YHVH in the flesh. We are the light of the world, in the absence of YHVH a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach.
To quote myself from earlier: Israel is told seven times in the Torah / Pentateuch that they are a “stiff-necked” people. See Isaiah 48:4 and Ezekiel 3:6 for more on God's opinion of Israel. The lesson can’t be learned by people who won’t listen.

Maimonides once said, “All the prophets spoke of Moshiach as the redeemer of Israel and their savior” If Maimonides saw Messiah in the Tanakh / Old Testament, should not you look more carefully?

I never said that the Prophets didn't prophesy of Mashiach and I am sorry if I said anything that gave you that idea. There are many, many prophecies of a Davidic King regathering the Exiles and conquering Israel's enemies. What are these if not Messianic prophecies? But the point you are ignoring is that "redeemer and savior of Israel" RaMBa"M does not refer to "dying for Israel's sins" but delivering them from exile and from their enemies, as they were "redeemed" from Egypt in the Book of Exodus. To quote RaMBa"M's phrase as if it were an endorsement of chr*stianity is really not honest on your part. But then, it's fully in line with "proving" the truth of chr*stianity's claims by quoting the verse "in you (Abraham) all the nations of the world will be blessed." Yep, that one verse couldn't have any other possible meaning but "one of your descendants will be G-d incarnate and will be vicariously punished for the sins of mankind" could it?

Here’s what you wrote in your original vanity:

So each individual must either live an entire life of absolute sinlessness or else face this inevitable fate--unless G-d incarnates Himself as a divine scapegoat to take this punishment Himself on behalf of every single individual.

Until you said, “There are many, many prophecies of a Davidic King regathering the Exiles and conquering Israel's enemies. What are these if not Messianic …” in your extended response to my extended response to your vanity, you had not said who you expect Messiah to be. You have only talked about who you suspect he is not.

What is your theology about Messiah? You reject Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach, we know this. But what do you anticipate the life and times and person of Moshiach to be? I would appreciate three to four thoughtful paragraphs summarizing, and your adding some web links for me to investigate. So far, you have made clear that you reject the testimony for Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ being Messiah and YHVH, but you have not said much of anything about who you expect.

Indeed you never said the prophets didn’t prophecy of Messiah. But I did quote Maimonides to illustrate that Messiah is a major area of Tanakh / Old Testament, which you never addressed in your vanity, except to reject the testimony of the New Testament regarding Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. YHVH a.k.a. Jesus Christ, and extra-Christian history. I remember you said your original attempt at a vanity was accidently deleted in a browser mishap, so I don’t hold this against you at all.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Isaiah 53:6

God lays our iniquity on the person mentioned in Isiah 53. The “divine scapegoat” is the Messiah himself. The notion that the “divine scapegoat” is Messiah was also mentioned by non-Christian Jews.

As long as Israel dwelt in the Holy Land, the rituals and sacrifices they performed (in the Temple) removed all those diseases from the world; now the Messiah removes them from the children of the world.
Zohar 2:212a

Isaiah 53 has always been chr*tianity's trump card, the one thing that supposedly means that J*sus is the messiah, that dying was his mission, and that in light of this fact the Torah simply must be dismissed as obsolete or superseded. This is the really the crux of the argument between the two religions. If Torah is absolute, then no further revelation, regardless of what it seems to say, can overthrow it. If revelation is progressive and culminates in J*sus, then the Torah cannot be eternal and absolute, regardless of how little it seems to speak of something greater to come, how eternal it asserts its statutes to be, or how horrifying the punishments it threatens on abandoning it (since in light of the later and "greater" revelation it simply must be abandoned).

There’s a lot to address here ZC. I will do so as best I can in piecemeal. Here we go:

Isaiah 53 has always been chr*tianity's trump card, the one thing that supposedly means that J*sus is the messiah, that dying was his mission,

Yes. Dying for our sins was his mission. Please also see Daniel 9:26, Zechariah 3:9, Isaiah 49:8 for a reminder. That the shed blood of the sinless can atone for sin, is clearly a Torah principle per Leviticus 17:11. I’ve already listed the verses and evidence for the arrival of the Jewish messiah circa 32 A.D. including Yoma 39b which shows that God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people in 30 A.D. which is exactly when Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ preached and taught. Perhaps a good first step for you, is for you to acknowledge that Isaiah 53 does indeed speak of Messiah. I will now quote ancient Rabbis to this effect:

As long as Israel dwelt in the Holy Land, the rituals and sacrifices they performed (in the Temple) removed all those diseases from the world; now the Messiah removes them from the children of the world.

Zohar 2:212a

"Dip your morsel of bread in the vinegar (Ruth 2:14). This refers to the Messiah’s sufferings, for it is said in Isaiah 53:5: ‘He was pierced through for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.’"

Midrash Ruth Rabbah, 2.14

Back to the words written by you ZC…

and that in light of this fact the Torah simply must be dismissed as obsolete or superseded.

Not dismissed, but fulfilled in Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach’s person and sacrifice, through faith in him. This is the fulfillment of Torah’s requirements for earthly living and sins for starters. Torah is eternal and Messiah fulfills Torah, since Messiah IS Torah.

God said in Deuteronomy 18:19 that we would have a choice to believe in this prophet or not. Since you claimed that every letter of Torah is important and critical, what about these letters and words?

This is the really the crux of the argument between the two religions. If Torah is absolute, then no further revelation, regardless of what it seems to say, can overthrow it.

Torah, or fulfillment of Torah by faith in Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach, is absolute for the forgiveness of sins on earth until the eternal kingdom of God, so Torah is not LITERALLY eternal. There are no sins in God’s kingdom a.k.a. heaven, so we don’t continually and eternally need the blood of animals per Leviticus 17:11 to cover our sins in heaven. I guess you can say that LITERAL Torah would be in effect even in heaven despite the lack of sin, since even according to Christian doctrine, Torah is still in effect forever, but fulfilled by faith in Christ.

If revelation is progressive and culminates in J*sus, then the Torah cannot be eternal and absolute,

Torah is eternal and absolute, but not acceptable to God since 30 A.D. by order of God per Yoma 39b, since the True Torah was teaching and preaching exactly on schedule per Genesis 49:10, Daniel 9:24-27, and Haggai 2:10.

regardless of how little it seems to speak of something greater to come,

What besides Genesis 49:10 and Deuteronomy 18 do you know of that speaks of Messiah? Why do you minimize this Torah? Is it because you were not aware of it?

how eternal it asserts its statutes to be, or how horrifying the punishments it threatens on abandoning it (since in light of the later and "greater" revelation it simply must be abandoned).

God gave a covenant to Adam, then a greater one to Noah, greater still to Abraham, and greater still covenant to Israel, while talking about the prophet of Deuteronomy 18. Furthermore, a “new covenant” is mentioned in Jeremiah 31:31, Ezekiel 37:26, and Isaiah 61:8. What makes you think God is not in the business of showing more and more of his greatness and wisdom, given the precedents?

This argument has been answered by people far more learned than I over the centuries, and I commend to you their comments, which are available on any number of counter-missionary sites.

Do you really want to trust your eternal destiny to the judgment of people like:

The Rabbis that ordered the execution of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ? These were the very Rabbis that according to Yoma 39b, were shown by YHVH that YHVH was no longer accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people under their tutelage. If these Rabbis who according to Maimonides’ Letter To Yemen killed Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach, how can you trust that they made the right decision?
Rabbi Akiba declared Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah, and that turned out to be false. Do you consider Akiba more learned than you? I’ve heard, and you would know more about this than I do, that Akiba did much to lay foundations for modern Judaism, and is even called, “Head of all the Sages”. If he did, should you trust the work Akiba did, if he was so stunningly and completely wrong about messiah?
The evidence for YHVH speaking through Moses, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html which precisely predicts 1948 as the year Israel would be reborn, was discovered in 1988. Are you certain that the issue has been settled for all time, by those that have died before us?

Let me just reiterate that the `eved mentioned in Chapter 52 (the referent of these famous verses) is traditionally the Jewish People (personified as "My servant, Jacob"). And while chr*stians see the J*sus' dismissal by the Sanhedrion as a sinner stricken by G-d as being what this prophecy is referring to, Jews can certainly point out that for two millenia chr*stians have seen them as "stricken of G-d"--allegedly punished, exiled, and cursed for the crime of "deicide." This certainly fits the prophecy every bit as well.

You’re saying Jews themselves are the fulfillment of the ‘eved a.k.a. Strongs 5650 of Isaiah 52/53? The problems with this interpretation are many:

This rebuttal by Maimonides that the servant of Isaiah 52/53 was Israel, was invented at least 1100 years after Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ walked the earth. This tells me everything I need to know about the extreme amount of contrivance involved. Maimonides just had to make up something to take away what you also freely admit is extremely convincing testimony that Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach is the promised Messiah.
I have already quoted Zohar 2:212a, and Midrash Ruth Rabbah, 2.14, with regard to Isaiah 53 being Messiah according to Jewish commentators. Clearly I suggest not the outlandish, or that which is outside the realm of Jewish thought or possibility.
The word appearing before ‘eved a.k.a. Strongs 5650 in Isaiah 53:11 is tsa-deek a.k.a. Strongs 6662, which means “righteous”. As I have already established in “List EOTJ”, the Jewish people are NOT the “righteous servant” who is Messiah.

This, more than sanctity in the higher spritual worlds, shows forth G-d's greatness. And how was this to be accomplished? Keyhole, meet key--by the observance of the Torah.

But even the Torah says in Deuteronomy 18:15 that God would send a prophet. Genesis 49:10, and many others do also. If Torah was meant to be forever, then Messiah would not be necessary.

The verse you cite is the commandment to listen to a prophet, and it (like the rest of the Torah) is still in effect (even though prophecy was removed from the world at the time of the return from Babylon). The first of these prophets was Moses' successor, Joshua. After the cessation of prophecy it refers to Moses' successors in the rabbinate (every generation has a Nasi', Moses' title). But even here, no Prophet or successor has the authority to overthrow the Revelation G-d gave to Moses. As RaMBa"M said, "Moses is the father of all wise men, both those who came before, and those who come after."

Again, my bad. Torah is forever. Jesus Christ claimed to be the fulfillment of Torah per Matthew 5:17, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” I sincerely apologize for the error on my part ZC.

God said he would send a prophet, and a new covenant. If you believe the Prophets, you would know that the messenger of the new covenant would be YHVH in the flesh.

Do you believe that Jeremiah, a prophet of God, lied in Jeremiah 31:31 when it says a “new covenant” would come? Did Ezekiel and Isaiah lie in Ezekiel 37:26, Isaiah 61:8, when they spoke of new covenants?
Given that the identity of the Messiah is consistently YHVH in the Septuagint, which was translated by Jews for Jews hundreds of years before Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ walked the earth, we know that it’s accuracy has been preserved. But despite the erasure of the divine name YHVH at least 134 times, the identity of the Messiah as YHVH is still apparent in the Tanakh / Old Testament in verses like Jeremiah 23:5, Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6, Zecharaiah 13:7.
Isaiah 28:16 says, “Therefore thus said the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he who believes shall not make haste.” We see that the messiah is likened metaphorically to a stone. We also see in Zecharaiah 3:9 that there is a stone by which iniquity is removed that has SEVEN eyes. Finally in Zechariah 4:10 we learn that YHVH has SEVEN eyes. But it is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense per Isaiah 8:14, so it is ultimately rejected per Psalms 118:22. Thus we have learned that:
1. The stone (Isaiah 28:16)
2. takes away sins (Zechariah 3:9)
3. and is YHVH (Zechariah 4:10)
4. but is a stumbling stone (Isaiah 8:14)
5. and ultimately rejected by “builders” though approved by YHVH (Psalms 118:22)

Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was their master, says the Lord;
Jeremiah 31:30-31 Soncino Tanakh / Old Testament

Even though we were given Torah, God promised a Messiah.

G-d told Jeremiah that the day would come when He would make a "new covenent" with the House of Israel. But why do chr*stians assume this refers to their "new testament?" They assume this, of course, because they already believe in the claims of chr*stianity, and therefore this prophecy simply must refer to chr*stianity, right?

One problem with this is that the chr*stian "new covenant" was not made with the House of Israel but with all the nations of the world (unless you want to claim that the chr*stian church is the "House of Israel" referred to). Then there is the fact that it makes much more sense, and is much more natural, to understand this prophecy in two other ways which are much more consistent and literal. The first of these is when "Ezra gave the Torah a second time" and the covenant Israel made with G-d at Sinai was renewed. It was at that time that `avodah zarah (the lowest and most depraved form of idolatry) was removed from the world. And while Israel had been plagued by idolatry since the Golden Calf, after this time it disappeared from Israel and the entire nation became a nation of Torah scholars. Another possibility is the future event of which this new covenant at the time of Ezra is merely an echo: the World to Come when sin will be completely removed from the world because man's evil inclination (given to him by G-d) will be completely sublimated--while the Torah will remain in force. (Surely you do not claim that the evil inclination was sublimated, and sin disappeared, two thousand years ago!)

Once again, like all chr*stians, you eisogete your assumptions into the TaNa"KH. You already believe that J*sus is the messiah, that the messianic prophecies refer to him, and that the Torah was but a temporary preparation (more on this below). Therefore you interpret the TaNa"KH to mean precisely this.

In response to the first paragraph: Of the prophecies I mentioned in this post in the CITOT table, the ones that place Moshiach in the early 1^st century are the ones I already mentioned and marked MOSH1ST. Either the prophecies collectively refer to Christianity, or this is the greatest coincidence in all eternity. God does not lie. As we have seen from the trial of Rabbi Eliezer, and the destruction of the 2^nd Temple, the Rabbinate of the 1^st century were sorely lacking in all critical qualities. It is very easy to look at each prophecy individually and dismiss them. It is much harder when you see them collectively point to someone pulling miracles, and dying for our sins, and rising again, in what we call the early 1^st century.
In response to the second paragraph: Isaiah 42:6 Soncino Tanakh / Old Testament says, “I the Lord have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light to the nations”. God promised the messiah to the nations also.
In response to the second paragraph: Isaiah 49:6 Soncino Tanakh / Old Testament says it even better, “And he says, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give you for a light to the nations, that may (sic) salvation may be to the end of the earth.” The messiah is for Jews and the nations.
Regarding the first alternative called “Ezra gave the Torah a second time”: The reason Jeremiah 31:30-31 could not apply, is because the verses say, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers … I will put my Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Bold emphasis added by me. It’s a new covenant that is not the covenant made in the Sinai wilderness, so this “Ezra Torah Revival” could not be the fulfillment of this prophecy. Especially since Ezekiel 37:26, Isaiah 61:8 make it clear that this covenant is to be everlasting. Most assuredly, the destruction of the 2^nd Temple tells us that this revival did not last.
Regarding the second alternative you presented: It’s SOP for Rabbinic Talmudists to claim that Moshiach will come at the end of human history, while completely ignoring what I’ve already presented in table CITOT and diagram TOTM.
Regarding the second alternative: Holy Spirit Christians are the very ones of whom it was foretold that, “the just shall live by his faith” prophesied by Habakkuk 2:4. Sin is abolished in my spirit, though in my soul, not yet. It’s for the faithful who believe, not for those who don’t. I hate sin, and it’s not fun like it used to be before I came to faith in Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ.

4) Please do not confuse this, the true concept of tiqqun `olam, with G-dless imitations.

Did "tiqqun olam" which amounts to creating heaven on earth in the name of God, get coined or before or after the destruction of the 2nd temple in 70 A.D.?

You don't believe in Heaven on earth? You don't believe in the Millenium? What are you, Catholic? Because if you are I could have dismissed your claims with must less trouble.

I did not say I don’t believe in it. Don’t care much for eschatology yet. Not Catholic. I am just aiming to be a Bible Christian. But you did sidestep my question: Did "tiqqun olam" get coined before or after 70A.D.?

Between what Daniel, Haggai, and Genesis report to be the time of the Messiah, we can triangulate the coming of Moshiach to be early 1st century.

Rashi also agreed Daniel spelled out the time of Messiah ...

He (Jonathan) moreover sought to make a Targum of the Hagiographa; but the voice from heaven came forth and said, "Enough." And why might he not execute a Targum of the Hagiographa? Because the End about the Advent of the Messiah is revealed in it. Rashi says, "In the Book of Daniel."
Megillah fol. 3a

So, since the messiah had to have shown up in the "first century" (when J*sus did), and since the royal prophecies were never literally fulfilled, then these prophecies simply must be figurative and refer to the chr*stian church? I'm not being sarcastic here; I'm asking a sincere question. Because unless one utterly rejects the literal messianic prophecies (the ingathering, the Davidic messiah sitting on his ancestral throne in Jerusalem), there is simply no way these prophecies have been fulfilled yet (in which case it is not Daniel, or Rashi's interpretation of Daniel, but your interpretation of Daniel (and of Rashi) that is at fault.

Thank you for your sincerity ZC. I appreciate it very much. It’s so refreshing to deal with an honest skeptic.

The royal prophecies are fulfilled in heaven now in one sense given since Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father per Psalms 110 and 80:17. Also, his kingdom is happening right now in the sanctified spirits of all believers.

The physical, visible kingdom is coming at the end of history. You will see him.

How many unfulfilled royal prophecies are there? I remember something less than 150, but I don’t remember clearly. Do you have a link to a full list I can look at?

As you well know, there are two portraits of the Messiah throughout the Tanakh / Old Testament. The “Suffering Servant” portrait, and the “Conquering Victor” portrait. Jehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ fulfilled the “Suffering Servant” portraits 300+ prophecies as outlined in www.messiahrevealed.org in his first coming, and will fulfill the “Conquering Victor” portrait in his 2^nd coming.

In the meantime, Christ is ruling in heaven right now. You’ll see it with your physical eyes when he comes back. In the meantime, Jesus is YHVH at the right hand of YHVH, as we read in Psalms 110 in the preserved Septuagint, which is completely consistent with regard to the identity of the Messiah as YHVH, as opposed to the received Masoretic text, which is inconsistent. I will trust my eternal destiny to the consistent text.

Please keep in mind ZC, that I only repeat myself for the benefit of the casual reader. I know I have your complete attention as I write this. Many surfing around until Yehoshua ha Moshiach comes back will stumble onto our writings, and I repeat myself for their benefit.

Bear in mind that though the, “the ingathering, the Davidic messiah sitting on his ancestral throne in Jerusalem,” prophecies have not been fulfilled, it did not stop Rabbinic Talmudists far more learned than I from promoting Menachem Mendel Schneerson as the very Moshiach that would soon come back to do exactly the things I just quoted you mentioning. I don’t know how that crowd is doing these days. Have you checked on them? They have no problem with Moshiach fulfilling some prophecies now, and the rest later.

BTW, just where in Rashi's vast writings does he ever say that the messiah came a thousand years before he was born?

He is quoted in Megillah fol. 3a by the writer. Obviously, Rashi does not believe Daniel’s testimony to his own hurt. But keep in mind the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html that affirms the truthfulness, and accuracy of the prophecy Rashi acknowledged Daniel made about the time of the messiah, but did not believe himself.

“The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts.”
Haggai 2:9 Soncino Tanakh / Old Testament

What did God mean about “give peace” in the 2nd Temple, if it meant not the coming of the Messiah?

There was "peace" during the time of the Second Temple? Doesn't that make Zerubavel the messiah? For surely there was more peace prior to J*sus' coming than there was after. Unless you have an extremely non-literal interpretation of the word "peace."

Isaiah 9:6, calls the messiah, the “Prince of Peace”. Let me quote my somewhat less handy and dandy Jewish Publications Society’s 1917 edition of the Old Testament:

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

Reading Isaiah 55:11, we read, “So shall my word be that goes out of my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.” So most assuredly, God meant something when he said, “in this place I will give peace” through Haggai. It is your duty as a professed believer in YHVH, to diligently search the matter out. Those who believe in Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach, receive that peace promised in Haggai 2:9-10, that comes though faith in him, who is the “Prince of Peace” per Isaiah 9:6.

The 2^nd Temple stood for centuries. You have the history of the time opened before you on the Internet, and in libraries. You can drill this one down to truth.

“The staff shall not depart from Judah, nor the scepter from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the obedience of the people be.”
Genesis 49:10 Soncino Tanakh / Old Testament

It was whilst the 2nd temple still stood that the Talmud reports that the Jewish leaders thought that Genesis 49:10 should be fulfilled. The following are what some ancient Rabbis thought of Genesis 49:10

The transmission of domain shall not cease from the house of Judah, nor the scribe from his children's children, forever, until Messiah comes.
Targum Onkelos

The scribes still have not ceased. They exist today, still doing their work. And until a few hundred years ago the Rabbinic courts still had the power to inflict the death penalty, even in exile. By your definition, didn't "domain" cease once before, when Israel was carried away into exile by Nevuchadnetzar?

Jews, even in exile, always had the right to life and death over their until Caponious.

In which case, the messiah should have come at that time (the Temple was destroyed and the offerings ceased at that time also).

The sole purpose of my quoting Targum Onkelos, was only to show that Genesis 49:10, is Messianic even to the writers of the Talmud. If one Rabbi’s opinion that Genesis 49:10 is Messianic is not enough, here’s more:

The world was created for the sake of the Messiah, what is this Messiah's name? The school of Rabbi Shila said 'his name is Shiloh, for it is written; until Shiloh come.' Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b, Rabbi Johanan

King and rulers shall not cease from the house of Judah...until King Messiah comes. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan

Kings shall not cease from the house of Judah...until the time of the coming of the King Messiah...to whom all the dominions of the earth shall become subservient. Targum Yerushalmi

I should have spelled this out that day as I just did. Unfortunately, on my way to the computer that day, someone sacked me and beat me with a lazy stick. I have largely recovered, and in turn sacked them who sacked me.

According to Josephus a non-Messianic Jew, Archelaus was replaced by a Roman named … “Caponius, one of the equestrian order of the Romans, was sent as a procurator, having the power of life and death put into his hands by Caesar!”

But when exactly did this happen according to the Talmud? We know the Talmud admits in Yoma 39b that 40 years before the destruction of the 2^nd Temple, God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people. I have tried to tie this remarkable moment in Jewish history to the earthly ministry of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ with …

1) Daniel pointing to 32 A.D.

2) Malachi 3:1 pointing to the “messenger of the covenant” visiting a standing Holy Temple

3) Haggai 2:9-10 saying that though the 2^nd Temple stood as nothing compared to the first, in that 2^nd House would YHVH give “peace”, meaning the Prince of Peace of Isaiah 9:6

... but the Talmud ties the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10 to that exact period for me:

A little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the power of pronouncing capital sentences was taken away from the Jews. Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24

Thus, Genesis 49:10 was fulfilled “a little” before Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ claimed to be the Messiah according to Maimonides.

That they knew the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10 was at hand, is beyond doubt since we have them on record saying …

When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them: they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: 'Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come'

Babylonian Talmund, Chapter 4, folio 37

They knew the fulfillment was upon them, and for whatever reason, they couldn’t tie their acknowledgement of Torah’s fulfillment to the new preacher proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven right under their noses.

Rabbi Johanan said, ‘The world was created for the sake of the Messiah, what is this Messiah’s name?’ The school of Rabbi Shila said, ‘his name is Shiloh, for it is written, until Shiloh comes. (Genesis 49:10)’
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b

The sages also said that the world was created for Israel and for the Torah.

Again, I only quoted that to draw attention to Genesis 49:10 spelling out the time of Messiah. As a side note, I think you’d agree that we should always take scripture over the words of ancient Rabbis.

Kings and rulers shall not cease from the house of Judah…until King Messiah comes.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan

Wasn't Tzidqiyahu the last Davidic king, long before the time of J*sus?

Ditto. I only used it to illustrate that Genesis 49:10 is Messianic. Are you saying that Messiah can’t come, since the Davidic line ended?

UNTIL SHILOH COMETH; this alludes to the royal Messiah. AND UNTO HIM SHALL THE OBEDIENCE (YIKHATH) OF THE PEOPLE BE: he [the Messiah] will come and set on edge (makheth) the teeth of the nations of the world.
Midrash Rabbah, Genesis XCVIII. 8

Kings shall not cease from the house of Judah...until the time of the coming of the King Messiah...to whom all the dominions of the earth shall become subservient.
Targum Yerushalmi

Since the destruction of the 1st Temple in 587 BC, the Jewish people though continuously occupied by a “lawgiver from between his feet”, were always given by their conquerors the option of wielding the “scepter” for executing whoever they esteemed worthy of death according to the Law of Moses.

The Temple was not destroyed in "587BC." It was destroyed in "422BC."

Again, Orthodox Jews reading from the Talmud are the only witness claiming that Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 422 BC, and I have already outlined what I know about the Talmud in the list marked TIF.

Rather than take you through the ins and outs of why the coming of “Shiloh” should have been fulfilled according to Torah, I’ll just quote Rabbi Rachmon again:

When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them: they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: 'Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come.'

When exactly they noticed the above, is made clear by this Talmud:

A little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the power of pronouncing capital sentences was taken away from the Jews.
Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24

So, we have learned, from Jewish, non-Christian, non-Messianic sources that:

The Sanhedrin noticed the Torah conditions for the arrival of the Messiah were fulfilled, as explained by Rabbi Rachmon.
The Talmud records the events that happened shortly before 30 CE or 30 AD that elicited the response detailed by Rabbi Rachmon.

According to Josephus, the ascension of the Roman Procurator Caponius in the early 1st century also marked the end of the Jewish option of wielding this scepter.

It was wielded again during the Middle Ages when the chr*stian powers occasionally allowed the Jews to execute capital punishment. If the government allowed it it could be done today (chayyav mitah bazeman hazeh).

If the Torah says that “Shiloh” will come given certain conditions that you acknowledge have already come to pass, it is your duty as a self-professed follower of Torah, to search out this matter thoroughly, by taking all the sources, and triangulating where they point to. I suggest you begin your search at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/shiloh.html.

And now Archelaus' part of Judea was reduced into a province, and Caponius, one of the equestrian order of the Romans, was sent as a procurator, having the power of life and death put into his hands by Caesar.
Josephus

The aforementioned eyewitness report by the 1st century Jewish Pharisee Josephus is corroborated by the following quote from the Talmud:

A little more than forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the power of pronouncing capital sentences was taken away from the Jews.
Josephus

I apologize ZC. The above quote is not by Josephus, it is in the Talmud.

The relevant question is, now that we've established that “Shiloh” is an idiom for “Messiah,” as well as the fact that the “scepter” had been struck from the hand of Israel by the “lawgiver” Caesar, did the Jewish leaders recognize the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10?

They did, and they recorded it in the Talmud.

When the members of the Sanhedrin found themselves deprived of their right over life and death, a general consternation took possession of them: they covered their heads with ashes, and their bodies with sackcloth, exclaiming: 'Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come.'
Rabbi Rachmon

For a fuller discussion with references on historical corroboration of the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10, please visit http://www.direct.ca/trinity/shiloh.html.

So, the ancient Sages of the time knew that J*sus was the messiah . . . but didn't become to chr*stians? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense. If they "knew" J*sus was the messiah they would have followed him. Since they didn't follow him they didn't believe he was the messiah. How can you invoke the ancient Sages to prove J*sus was the messiah if they themselves didn't believe this?

Given Rabbi Rachmon’s quote, they noticed that the conditions for messiah’s arrival were fulfilled a “little [earlier] than” 30 C.E. or 30 A.D., but somehow they lost sight of the information packed into Diagram TOTM. Remember also the words of David when he said:

The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they [are] vanity.

Psalms 94:11

It could be inferred from the testimony of Rabbi Rachmon, the “Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24”, and the Torah in Genesis 49:10, and Daniel, and Haggai as outlined in Diagram TOTM, and the witness of God no longer accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people per Yoma 39b, that the Jewish leadership had all the signs they needed in God’s eyes to be accountable, but they zoned out given Psalms 94:11 is truth.

7) The Torah foretells periods of destruction and exile when the sacrifices cannot be offered (these are always punishments for abandoning the Torah, not for "rejecting the messiah").

P>Sir, I respectfully disagree.

You've never read the Torah? See below.

Our rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the western most light shine
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39b, Soncino Version

The crimson colored strap supernaturally became white when God accepted the sacrifice made by the Jewish priests for the collective sins of Israel. God stopped manifesting this miracle, according to the Talmud 40 years before the destruction of the 2nd temple. The 2nd Temple was destroyed in 70A.D. 70 minus 40 years means 30A.D. is precisely when the punishment of God refusing Israel's sacrifices started.

I was referring to those two portions of the Torah which contain all the fearful punishments awaiting Israel (including exile from the Holy Land and the concomitant absence of Temple offerings). These are Parashat BeHar (Leviticus 25:1-26:2) and Parashat Ki Tavo' (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8), both of which thunder with warnings about what awaits Israel if they stray from the Torah. There is not a hint of "rejecting the messiah." You have read these portions, correct? Why would HaShem threaten such terrible things for straying from the Torah and then turn around and punish them for refusing to see that the Torah had ceased to be valid (G-d forbid!)?

Which is greater, the Torah, or the God who gave the Torah? Surely it is axiomatic that the God who gave the Torah is greater than the Torah. The Septuagint is completely consistent with regard to the identity of the Messiah as YHVH, in contrast to the received Masoretic text, which is inconsistent with regard to the identity of the Messiah as YHVH.

It is axiomatic that God’s word would be consistent and without error. Thus either the Masoretic is correct in testifying that the Messiah is NOT YHVH, and yet is inconsistent in it’s testimony due to the terrible care by those were supposed to be faithful custodians, and thus there have been inadvertent scribal errors that result in Messianic prophecies alluding to the Messiah being YHVH, as I have already discussed up in Point MIG.

The second choice, is to believe the testimony of the Septuagint, a translation made by Jews for Jews, hundreds of years before Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ walked the earth. Thus, the Rabbis who performed the translation from Hebrew to Greek did so under the complete sanction of the Sanhedrin. These Rabbis had no theological “Judaism versus Christianity” axe to grind. Once again, the Septuagint is completely consistent with regard to the identity of the Messiah as YHVH.

It’s obvious to me, and I am sure also to you, that the consistent text is the unaltered, reliable, true text.

The Messiah is YHVH, and rejecting the Messiah promised in Genesis 49:10, outlined in Tables CITOT, and CITT, at the time specified in Diagram TOTM, is rejecting YHVH. It is axiomatic that rejecting the God who gave the Torah, is much worse than rejecting the Torah.

Besides, the testimony of Rabbi Rachmon, and Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24 show us that the Jewish leadership had ample reason to perk up their spiritual ears, and notice that Genesis 49:10 had been fulfilled in their lifetime, and the Messiah was in their midst.

One must ask themselves: What happened in 30AD for God to punish the Jewish people by refusing their sacrifices? The answer is, the Jewish leaders began publicly insulting the ministry of Jesus Christ (“Anointed Savior”).

Are these the same Jewish leaders who you say knew that J*sus was the messiah? And btw, pointing out that the name Yehoshu`a means "savior" and that the word christos is Greek for "anointed" does not make J*sus of Nazareth the messiah. The anointed high priests and kings were anointed (and thus "messiahs" in the literal sense) and everyone named "Yehoshu`a" is named "savior."

I repeatedly use the proper names Jesus Christ and Yehoshua Ha Mashiach repeatedly because this discussion will be on the internet until the end of the world. I don’t want to miss an opportunity to link the two for the Israeli or Jewish reader. They should not go through life wondering what Judaism is really about. It’s Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. the “Jesus Christ” of the Christians, is the Messiah/Moshiach of the Jewish people.

Rashi is quoted as associating the “anointed” of Daniel as being the Messiah.

He (Jonathan) moreover sought to make a Targum of the Hagiographa; but the voice from heaven came forth and said, "Enough." And why might he not execute a Targum of the Hagiographa? Because the End about the Advent of the Messiah is revealed in it. Rashi says, "In the Book of Daniel."
Megillah fol. 3a

Indeed, being “anointed” means God has made you king. But we are talking about the anointing of YHVH upon Moshiach/Messiah. There have been plenty of “anointed” ones throughout Jewish history, but we are commanded to listen to Messiah in Deuteronomy 18:19.

One of my Mexican brothers in the faith often says, “there are plenty of guys named Jesus down in Mexico, but none of them can save you!” None of the anointeds you mention could save from sin.

The [Jewish leaders] said, 'He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.'
Matthew 9:34

And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
Mark 3:22

Now you're arguing from a book whose authority I do not recognize. Could I convert you to mormonism by quoting the "book of mormon?" And I point out again that these Jewish sages whom the NT says made this charge against J*sus are the very ones whom you seem to think really secretly believed he was the messiah after all.

I knew you reject the authority of the New Testament when I quoted it. That is why I corroborated the claim I made from the New Testament with the identical claim by Maimonides.

1) The New Testament says that the Rabbis rejected Jesus.

2) Maimonides says that the Rabbis rejected Jesus.

Therefore, if on a scale from 0 to 100, your faith in the reliability of the New Testament was a 0, the fact that Maimonides agrees with the New Testament in this point should cause your faith in the reliability of the New Testament to go from say 0 to 1. If it’s reliable in ways you can measure, it is likely to be reliable in ways you can’t.

On the off chance you believe that the Jews didn't kill Jesus on the charge of claiming to be God, and rather the Romans did, here are the words of Maimonides in his “Letter to Yemen”.

Jesus of Nazareth... impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.
Maimonides

Maimonides was right. J*sus was guilty of blasphemy and according to the Torah should have been put to death by strangulation. As you have pointed out, the Jewish authorities could not do this at that time, so he was turned over to the Romans who crucified him, with the result that--surprise, surprise--he died of strangulation.

I quoted Maimonides to corroborate the testimony of the New Testament.

Again, the exact year the Talmud reports the punishment having begun, is the exact year that Yehoshua Ha Mashiach arrived on the scene, performing miracles, and proclaiming the “Kingdom of Heaven” is “at hand”.

So when does it get here??? Seriously.

It is in me, and in every born again believer. Jesus said so. That’s the New Covenant. I hate sin, and I love righteousness, because the Torah is written in my heart per Jeremiah 31:33.

8) And when the real Mashiach comes it will not be subject to debate but a fact that no one on earth will be able to deny. So long as we're debating, then he hasn't come.

Deuteronomy 18:19 makes it perfectly clear that people will have a choice to follow Messiah or not. Isaiah 53:1 shows that reports of the Messiah's coming will be doubted.

The verse in Deuteronomy you mention is the commandment to listen to a prophet. I have replied to the claim that the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53 is J*sus--or even the messiah at all--above.

You don’t think Messiah is a messenger from God the way a prophet is? The fact that Messiah is THE messenger from YHVH, does not mean he is not A messenger.

In fact the Messiah is such a Prophet as is stated in the Midrash on the verses, ‘Behold my servant shall prosper ...’ Moses by the miracles which he wrought drew but a single nation to the worship of God, but the Messiah will draw all nations to the worship of God.

Rabbi Levi ben Gershom

In your original vanity, you said, “And when the real Mashiach comes it will not be subject to debate but a fact that no one on earth will be able to deny. So long as we're debating, then he hasn't come.” It will interest you to know that the following quotes in blue are taken from material published by the Orthodox Jewish followers of the Lubavichter Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who believe he is the messiah. What is bolded and blue, was done so by me for emphasis.

Just as we find that Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses] ascended to Heaven, body and soul, and remained there for 40 days...similary, Moshiach [King Messiah] will, through the help of the Almighty, merit to attain that lofty soul. He will then realize that he is in fact Moshiach [King Messiah] , although no one else wil be aware of this. This is the secret to which the Zohar alludes, 'Moshiach [King Messiah] will be revealed, yet no one will perceive him'.

Shortly afterwards Moshiach [King Messiah] will be hidden away, body and soul, in that Divine pillar [the spiritual incubation of this sublime soul], as previously explained...

Moshiach [King Messiah] will thereupon rise up to Heaven just as Moshe [Moses] ascended to the firmament, and will subsequently [return and] be revealed completely for all to see. The entire Jewish people will then perceive him and flock towards him.

The above quotes are instructive, since they are by Hebrew speaking, Talmud reading Jews, who have no qualms with the idea of the Messiah being relative to his importance, incognito, then dying, rising, and staying out of sight for a while, before coming back.

For 15 prophecies that foretell the rejection of Moshiach, please see http://messiahrevealed.org/rejected.html.

Fifteen prophecies, like all the others, that have been raised and answered thousands of times during the past two millenia.
Seriously, you gonna trust a bunch of dead people with your eternal destiny? Shouldn’t you drill down the matter for yourself?

The fact that people reject Moshiach, does not negate from his authenticity at all. In fact it proves it, since His rejection was foretold, and the Word of God does not lie, because only it says what happens before it happens with accuracy and specificity.

When Mashiach comes and people reject him, all will know (including the rejecters themselves) that it is indeed Mashiach they are rejecting.

That’s odd. You must have been tired when you wrote the above. That’s because, when I inferred that the Jews were sinners who would wrest judgment against God like any other people, you responded with the following:

In addition to this there is the unpleasant fact that by claiming that the Jews of the first chr*stian century came to realize their mistake, actually came to realize they were "wrong," and then rather than admit their mistake actually alter their holy books rather than convert you are in essence positing the existence of a people of pure evil. Why else would anyone knowingly refuse to follow the truth even after admitting it is the truth???

Ultimately, we agree on the Jewish Doctrine of Original Sin: we are all sinners. But why did you accuse me, falsely, of claiming that 1^st century Jews knew messiah, and reject him, as if I was saying something completely horrible and unconscionable, and then turn around and accuse those living at Messiah’s end of history arrival of doing the same thing?

And Mashiach will wage war (literal war) against them, compelling them to either submit to him or be killed.

And again, your standard of determining what constitutes Scritpure is mistaken. The Torah, the initial and ultimate Revelation, was not accepted at Sinai because it correctly predicted future events but because (unlike ever other alleged "divine revelation" in history) it was delivered to Israel by G-d Himself, publicly, to an entire nation of people (which counting women, children, and the `Erev Rav (great mixed multitude) may have numbered three million people. Every other religion in world history was founded by a human being ("incarnate gxd" or not) who claimed to speak for (or to be) G-d. Only the Torah was given publicly and objectively by the invisible G-d to an entire nation of people. It never happened before; it has not happened since; it will never happen again. This is the basis of Scripture, and this is why Torah is the Ultimate Revelation which sits in judgment on all prophets and revelations to follow.

Torah came publicly directly from God, and God told us publicly in Deuteronomy 18:21-22 who we should listen to. The Messiah, who is also YHVH in unaltered non Masoretic versions of scripture like the Septuagint, came in person and had an itinerant ministry circa 29-32A.D.. God topped his own act in the Sinai wilderness, with the ministry of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ, who is YHVH in the flesh. So your claim “it has not happened since” is false.

Rabbi Rachmon, and the Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24, demonstrate that Genesis 49:10 was fulfilled shortly before the public ministry of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach. Furthermore, the CITOT, CITT, TOTM, and MIG references above testify to the identity and timing of Messiah who is YHVH.

Jesus Christ claimed to be God, and the Septuagint is completely consistent with regard to the identity of the Messiah as God. The Masoretic text is inconsistent in this regard. I trust the consistent record to be the un-doctored, un-tampered, un-altered one. Even in the doctored Masoretic text, they did not get around to tampering with Jeremiah 23:6, Isaiah 9:6, Zechariah 13:7, and Isaiah 7:14, which show us that the Messiah is YHVH.

“Even before man was created the ground sinned”

Pulling out my trusty electronic Soncino Tanakh,

Are you sure you don't mean your "Handy-Dandy Soncino Tanakh?" ;-)

I can’t use the same amusing euphemisms every time ZC. ;)

which for those of you not graced with a nominal Jewish upbringing as I was, is an English Old Testament translated by Jews for Jews circa 1960-1963, we read ...

... and fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:11-12

Pushback #1 to “ground sinned”) If the ground or trees disobeyed in Genesis 1:12, meaning the 1st sin came before the fall in Genesis 3, why would the Bible also report in Genesis 1:12 that, “God saw that it was good.” Was God blind to this sin by the ground? Put another way, if sin did not get introduced into creation when Adam and Eve's partook of the forbidden fruit, why did God only curse Adam, Eve, and serpent in Genesis 3 *after* the fiasco in the Garden of Eve?

Pushback #2 to “ground sinned”) What kind of tree yields fruit other than a fruit tree? This “ground sinned” theory makes it sound like God commanded fruit, and for all intents and purposes, got fruitbats. Functionally, what is the difference between what God commanded, and what he got in Genesis 1:11-12? Could it be possible the person who came up with this theory is inadvertently making God out to be impotent, just for the sake of opposing Original Sin as a Biblical doctrine that began with Adam and Eve's sin?

Pushback #3 to “ground sinned”) Do you have any idea when this interpretation was birthed? I would draw some comfort that it was brought forth in good faith if it could be verified that it pre-dates the time of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ.

(Parenthetically, calling J*sus Chr*st by the Hebrew transl(iter)ation of his name does not make him the messiah. Why would anyone think that it does?)

The midrash about the ground sinning was called forth by a problem in the text. G-d commanded the ground to bring forth `etz peri `oseh peri (trees of fruit yielding fruit), while the Torah says that the ground brought forth `etz `oseh peri (trees bearing fruit). Traditionally, G-d commanded that the earth bring forth trees of fruit--trees which would have themselves been fruit, tasting exactly like the fruit they bore. Instead the ground brought forth merely trees bearing fruit. The trees were not fruit themselves (in part for this the ground was cursed when G-d spoke to Adam after his own sin).

To understand why the simple change of phrase by the omission of one word would be a problem, one must recall that the Torah is not merely inspired writing--it is the very Word of G-d Himself.

It was written by G-d 974 generations before the creation (being what you chr*stians call the "logos") and the universe was created to fit it. Every single word, letter, and stroke of the scribe's pen is loaded with meaning.

If a word is used in the first phrase and omitted in the second, there is a reason for it. It isn't a meaningless coincidence. The presence of the extra word "fruit" in "trees of fruit" in the first phrase which is missing in the second phrase means that G-d commanded the ground to bring forth "trees of fruit bearing fruit" but instead got only "trees bearing fruit."

You should apply this level of attention to the COGBG , MOSH1ST, CITOT, CITT, TOTM, and MIG references I have already mentioned.

You shall not have in your house different measures, a large and a small. But you shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shall you have; that your days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God gives you. For all who do such things, and all who do unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God.

I notice that you have neglected to mention the really important point I made in this section of my argument: that G-d Himself gave man his evil inclination. This is adduced from the extra yod in the word vayiytzer in Genesis 2:7. Again, there has to be a reason the Torah uses an extra, "superfluous" yod; it can't really be superfluous or G-d wouldn't have put it there. This is an example of remez (one of the four senses that make up PaRDeS).

In Deuteronomy 12:32 and 13:1 and 4:2, YHVH commands us not to bring his word to naught. Genesis 1:12 says that despite the minor alleged discrepancy between what God commanded, and what came to pass according to peanut-brained humans, it was “good”. Also, God cursed Adam, Eve, and all creation after the sin in the garden in Genesis 3:14-19. Therefore, this “ground sinned” theory brings the word of God to naught. Therefore, there must be another correct interpretation to explain the anomalies you mentioned.
We need to check the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls for their witness, as to what Genesis 1:12 says.
You didn’t say when these theories were invented. I will be impressed if they were thought up before Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ walked the earth.

The point to all this is that everything in existence--even evil--has its ultimate source in G-d. There is no other creator. There is no "evil gxd" who came along later and messed up a good creation made by the "good G-d" (that would require two "gxds"). As I said (something else you have ignored) G-d created the Satan and gave him his duties. G-d created a world that was imperfect even before Adam's sin so that it could be corrected and perfected by observance of the Torah. This was so before Adam's sin, and remains so after Adam's sin. Though the first sin affected terrible changes in human nature and in the universe itself, man's relationship afterwards--just as before--was primarily statutory rather than salvational in the chr*stian understanding.

I didn't forget PaRDeS. It's just that what someone alleged to you was a gem of PaRDeS, is contradicted by the plain reading of the text.

Put another way, Deuteronomy 4:2 says very plainly, “You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish nothing from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Since this “ground sinned” interpretation directly contradicts what God said, it is an attempt to add to what God said. Worse yet, it is an attempt to usurp the Word of God, for the word of man, which I have already addressed before in “List TIF”, and also when I discussed the backstabbing of Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus.

If there is an extra yod in Genesis 2:7, that does not belong in the word normally, then there must be some other reason for it, since it is nonsense and a violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 for the PaRDeS interpretation to directly contradict the plain meaning of the text. This is the substance of Pushback #1.

10) All theories of "progressive revelation" are inherently unprovable. If revelation "progresses" from lower to higher, where does it stop? I know you will say with the "new testament," but that is arbitrary on the part of chr*stians. If revelation "progresses," why shouldn't chr*stianity be superseded by islam, which would be superseded by sikhism, which would be superseded by bahai, which would be superseded by something new to come along? When would it ever stop? Judaism, alone of all the religions of the world, is the only one that identifies the first revelation as the supreme one, while every other religion has to claim a "progressive" revelation until it comes to its own scriptures (at which point it stops, of course).

The reason the progression of revelation continues with the New Testament, is because the New Testament, like the Old Testament, says what happens, thousands of years before it happens with accuracy and specificity. Please see http://www.direct.ca/trinity/evidence.html and http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html for the details. This is what Grant Jeffrey appropriately called, the signature of God. By which you know that you can trust your eternal destiny to the God revealed in the Bible.

Once again, you are missing a very important point. It isn't accuracy of predicting the future that forms the basis of Divine Revelation but the fact that G-d Himself (and I mean the invisible, unincarnate G-d) publicly spoke to three million people at Mt. Sinai, something He never did before and will never do again (let me know if this ever occurs).

Torah contradicts this claim of yours:

And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follows not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, and the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:21-22

Also, quoting the prophet Isaiah …

Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no one else; I am God, and there is no one like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from old times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure; Isaiah 46:9-10 Soncino Tanakh (as usual)

I have from the beginning declared it to you; before it came to pass I announced it to you; lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my carved image, and my molten image, has commanded them. Isaiah 48:5

YHVH is very clear that only he can tell the future, and spells it out in Torah and in Isaiah, so that we may hear YHVH’s voice down the road after Sinai also.

Keep in mind that Islam does not do this, nor Zoroastrianism, nor Ba-hai’ism, nor any other false religion. Only the Old and New Testaments do this.

This is the Signature of God, that you would know the voice of God from the voice of men and devils.

Why does the progressive revelation continue through the New Testament and cease with Islam et. al.? The writings of Islam don't tell the future with accuracy and specificity the way the Bible does. Devils and men can't do what you bear witness to at the aforementioned links. Only God can. All you have to do to dismantle my response to your point, is tear down the evidence at the above links, and my responses which follow your challenges, and this case falls apart.

Why does not the revelation continue with Sikhism, Bahaiism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnessism, and Scientology? They don't predict the future as only God does in the Bible. The signature of God is not in their writings as demonstrated in the above links. God did not write them.

While it is true that one method of testing the prophets is whether or not their predictions come true, I cannot stress enough that this is not the foundation on which Revelation rests. I have elucidated this above. Moreover, you are ignoring two very important points:

1)All prophecy, even by true Prophets, contains an element of contingency. G-d always has the option of "repenting" and withholding a promished chastisement (or blessing) depending on how the prophecy is received. Jonah's prediction that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days (which G-d didn't do because the Ninevites repented) is one example.

While the delivery of punishment of sin is contingent, the delivery of a covenant is not contingent on the behavior of men. There were no contingencies for the Adamic, Noahidic, Abrahamic, or Torahic Covenants. Why should the time of Messiah be contingent if the other covenants were not?

2) False prophets may very well make predictions that come true--even though this would seem to supernaturally confirm their authority. This is spelled out very clearly in Parashat Re'eh (Deuteronomy 13). There it explicitly states that "if a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises from your midst and gives you a sign or wonder ['ot; mofet]; and the sign or wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying 'come and let us walk after other 'gxds' whom you have not known and follow them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams because HaShem your G-d is testing you to know whether you truly love HaShem your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul." The very next verse states "after HaShem your G-d you will walk and Him shall you fear, and his commandments shall you keep, to His Voice you will hearken, Him you will serve, and to Him you shall cling."

Here we have a case of a genuine "prophet" who gives "signs and wonders," the "signs and wonders" actually come to pass, and this is a genuine supernatural phenomenon brought about by G-d Himself. And how are the people to react? They are to completely ignore the prophet and his supernatural phenomena and keep following the Torah. I don't know how much more plainly this could be laid out. This is a commandment in the Torah by which each and every prophecy, sign, and miracle must be judged, even if they come to pass. In fact, their coming to pass is the work of G-d Himself to test His people, and His commandment is that they ignore this prophet and his genuine supernatural signs and wonders and stick with the Torah.

Contrary to the prophet of Deuteronomy 13, Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ did not …

… say “let’s go after other Gods”. He claimed to be Messiah, the Son of Man, Good Shepherd, and Son of God, and said he came from the God of Israel.
… come at the wrong time. Please see the TOTM Diagram I have already shown.
... make false prophecies. The standard of Deuteronomy 18 for a prophet of YHVH is absolute perfection. All someone has to do to is make a single, solitary wrong prophecy, and you should not listen to them.

Even the first revelation of Judaism promised the Messiah, and Christianity is the fulfillment of that promise.

Only for those who believe this already.

The defense rests.

Islam claims that Christianity is true but that it was corrupted, thus leaning on the truthfulness of Christianity for credibility.

Exactly as chr*stianity leans on the Revelation at Sinai for credibility, all the while claiming that it has been "corrupted" by scribes and pharisees.

Except for the fact that the Tanakh / Old Testament point to the time we call 32 C.E. a.k.a. 32 A.D. as the time of the Messiah as I have already outlined in the TOTM Diagram, and the CITT, and CITOT lists. Neither Judaism nor Christianity, point to Islam nor any other false religion.

Mormonism and Russelism do the same thing, leaning on Christianity as true.

See above.

Then why didn’t they use Judaism as a launching point, if the faith of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ is such an obvious lie? The answer is, everybody knew Christianity to be the way.

All this, despite Psalms 12:6-7 and Jesus' claim that “my words will not pass away”.

Psalm 12 only refers to J*sus if you already believe the claims of chr*stianity.

Psalms 12:6-7 does not refer to Jesus in any way I can discern. I was only pointing out that both new and old covenants claim that their words will be preserved for future generations. Thus, any claims by Mormonism, Islam, and Jehovah’s Witnessism that the Bible has been corrupted, thus the services of Joseph Smith, Mohammad, and Charles Taze Russel were critical to humanity, are Biblically false.

And as for J*sus claiming his revelation is eternal, the Torah also claims to be eternal.

Jesus fulfills the requirements of Torah. His blood fulfills the sacrificial blood demanded in Leviticus 17:11. See Isaiah 53 for Messiah, see Zechariah 12:10 or Psalms 22:16 for his piercing. See the CITOT table for the play by play of his ministry from the Tanakh / Old Testament.

If the words of the Torah aren't sufficient to establish its eternity--if their obvious literal sense must be discarded in view of the "plain truth" of the "superior revelation," then you are a hypocrite for not following the exact same logic with the words of J*sus. Like Torah, he claimed his teachings were permanent, but revelation being "progressive," they simply "must" be discarded in favor of the "higher" revelation.

I’m repeating myself, but this is a long conversation. Jesus fulfills Torah. Only the New and Old Testaments say what happens, thousands of years before it happens. Please read http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html for the details.

And moslems are hypocrites for wanting progressive revelation to end with their "qur'an" as well. Once the principal of "progressive revelation" is admitted there is no stopping point; only hypocritical claims that "my revelation is the final one."

The Signature of God, established by YHVH in Deuteronomy 18:21-22, and echoed in Isaiah, tells us when YHVH is speaking, and when he is not. Please see http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html for the details.

And if you do not see the claims of the Torah to eternity--the many assertions that these commandments are to be kept "forever"--and if you do not see that your criticism of islam for not accepting J*sus' words that his religion is eternal is identical to my criticism of you for not accepting the Torah's words that it is eternal--if you do not see that you are making the identical claim the moslems make, and that it is as groundless for you as it is for them, then you are simply too blind, too hypocritical, or too dishonest to have this conversation with.

At the risk of repeating myself [Point WU1]:

Torah is eternal, but fulfilled by Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach.
The Tanakh / Old Testament points to the New Covenant in the CITOT, CITT, TOTM , and MIG points I have already made in this post.
Neither the Old nor New Covenants point to Islam or anything else.
The heart of Judaism is not Torah, but YHVH, who entered history in the person of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a Jesus Christ.

11) Finally, I take the following quote from your post 23 in the vanity I posted, "And unless you're implying that since the sacrifices cannot be carried out at this time that the Torah as (sic)"expired" (G-d forbid!). First, the Torah itself predicts exile (during which sacrifices cannot be brought)--never as a punishment for "rejecting the messiah," but always and only for straying from the Torah itself.

If the Messiah is God himself, then rejecting the Messiah would be rejecting God himself. Please see http://www.yourarmstoisrael.org/misc/pdf/The%20New%20Updated%20Messianic%20Believers%20First%20 Response%20Handboo..pdf for the case for the systematic and deliberate erasure of the divine name, YHVH, from the received Masoretic text at least 134 times, specifically in cases where one could infer the Messiah to be God.

I believe I have already explained the extreme reverence with the Jewish scribal tradition has for the Bible, how every verse, word, and letter is carefully catalogued, and how even apparent "mistakes" in the text are never corrected. This makes any assertion of tampering as you describe (to say the least) highly unlikely. Other than this, what you suggest is a people who knew they were supposed to accept J*sus but didn't out of . . . what? Pure evil? That would make them "the serpent race" of anti-Semitic mythology, wouldn't it?

First of all: You will notice that at the FR thread titled “How to Get the World To Hate Israel” available at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2055915/posts?q=1 , I was the 1^st person on the scene to fight the anti-Israel poster. You showed up at post #39 if I recall correctly.

Second of all: The Septuagint is consistent about Messiah being YHVH, and the Masoretic is not. Thus, I know which to trust. The erasure of the divinity of the Messiah from the received Masoretic is not complete, and can still be witnessed to, as I have already pointed out in Point MIG.

Third of all: Something I forgot to call you on in your post 23 is, “And unless you're implying that since the sacrifices cannot be carried out at this time that the Torah as (sic)"expired" (G-d forbid!). First, the Torah itself predicts exile (during which sacrifices cannot be brought)--never as a punishment for "rejecting the messiah,”

Per the aforementioned Point MOSH1ST, in which I mention Babylonian Talmud Yoma 39b states God stopped accepting the sacrifices of the Jewish people 40 years before the destruction of the 2^nd Temple, which is just one year after the ministry of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach began, I think therefore …
1. Given: Leviticus 26:33, punishment is exile.
2. Though the Torah predicts exile, during which sacrifices cannot be brought, for the last 40 years the 2^nd Temple stood, sacrifices could be offered, and sacrifices were offered, but God did not accept them.
3. Thus, God himself cancelled the old fulfillment of the eternal Torah, not because of exile. Exile had nothing to do with it.
4. In conclusion, the Christian concludes God was only accepting the blood of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ from 30 A.D. forward.
Which is greater? The Torah, or the God who gave the Torah? The Messiah is YHVH a.k.a. God in the Septuagint, and even in parts of the Masoretic text per “Point MIG” which I have already made. Thus rejecting the Messiah a.k.a. YHVH is grounds enough for exile, though it is not spelled out.
You continued in post 23 saying, “And second, if the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of the offerings signaled the arrival of Mashiach, then he came in Jeremiah's time, because the Temple was destroyed then long before the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans (seventy years with no sacrifices).” And to this I say …
1. The destruction of the Temple has nothing to do with the arrival of the Messiah per any prophecy I can remember in the Tanakh / Old Testament.
2. Same with the cessation of the offerings. BUT, the cessation of offerings happened about 1 year into the public ministry of Jesus Christ a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach.
3. The messiah could not come in the time of Jeremiah, since “Diagram TOTM” clearly shows how Genesis 49:10, Haggai 2:10, and Daniel 9 were fulfilled right around the time when God stopped accepting the sacrifices per Babylonian Talmud Yoma 39b.

If the Jewish sages had believed J*sus were the messiah, they would have followed him. If not before, then certainly after his "resurrection." What motivation would a people have to know the truth and reject it anyway other than being the evil "serpent race" of anti-Semitic imagination? I'm sorry, but your argument that the ancient Jewish sages knew J*sus was the messiah at some point but still didn't convert to chr*stianity simply makes no sense at all.

When did I say that the Jewish leaders knew they were rejecting Messiah? All I claimed is that they erased the name of YHVH 134 times from the Masoretic text, wherever it could be inferred that the Moshiach / Messiah would be YHVH.

Thus, Israel rejected God, and thus his Word, Jesus Christ, when they rejected their Moshiach.
The Brief Case For Christianity:
1) http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html. If you disagree, please tell me what exact sentence your disagreement begins.
2) http://messiahrevealed.org/category-index.html
I don't require a response to all 300+ fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy in the life and times of Jesus Christ.

I have explained in my replies above that Judaism is based on the Torah, not the messiah. The messiah is the servant, not the master, of the Torah ("Moses is the father of all wise men, those who came before, and those who come after;" this includes the messiah).

Solomon is the wisest to ever live. If the Messiah is YHVH, as I have claimed, then you have it backward ZC.

I have also explained that there are alternative interpretations that make much more sense when the truth of chr*stianity is not assumed from the outset.

I have striven to use only Torah, and Talmud, and secular historians to answer your challenges. I only brought up the New Testament when you spoke an outright falsehood about what it is about.

There is simply no need to respond to each and every argument when 1)they are based on the faulty assumption that the messiah rather than the Torah is the heart of Judaism, and 2)others far more learned than I have been answering these arguments for two thousand years and have done so far better than I ever could. I have demonstrated above that Torah is absolute and sits in judgement on all prophets and "messiahs.' How do you answer that without making the very same argument the moslems make against chr*stianity--that Judaism was "true once" but became corrupted, that while on the surface it seems to claim eternity this must be rejected in light of a later, "higher" revelation? You can't do it.

I made my attempt in to wrap up my case in Point WU1. I will repeat point #4 when I say: The heart of Judaism is not Torah, but YHVH who is Mashiach in the consistent and unaltered Septuagint, who entered history in the person of Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a Jesus Christ. It is axiomatic that YHVH is at least as important and at least as central as the Torah he gave. Torah is to honor YHVH and YHVH the giver of Torah was rejected when YHVH a.k.a. Yehoshua Ha Mashiach per “Point MIG” was rejected from Israel by crucifixion.
The bulk of the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html, was discovered in 1988. This issue was not settled centuries ago. Standing on the shoulders of giants, it is axiomatic that we can see farther than them.

If you could show me a verse in the Tanakh / Old Testament where it says the Messiah must accomplish all in one visit, or a verse where it says the Messiah can't do all in two visits, I will be impressed to no end. I have compassed the Tanakh many times, and I have not seen it.

What's this? You've been invoking PaRDeS every time I point out that chr*stianity is not the obvious, surface teaching of the Hebrew Bible but now suddenly you reject it and refuse to accept any meaning not on the surface of the text? Oh yes . . . that's consistent! Besides--the argument from silence is a pretty weak argument.

Forgive me ZC for not making effort to be more specific. I would have done well to have rephrased that as, “Show me how one could interpret, using as many verses as required from the Tanakh / Old Testament, that the Messiah will accomplish all in one visit, given the “Messiah ben David” and “Messiah ben Joseph” dual portraits of the Messiah throughout the Tanakh / Old Testament.”

This is the most important topic we are discussing, and I should go the extra mile to be specific.

No worries ZC. The Messiah, according to Rabbinic Talmudic thought, will come twice. It’s just that Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ has already been rejected by the Jewish “leadership” from this position per Isaiah 8:14, “and a stone of stumbling and rock of offense” and Psalms 118:22, “and thus would be rejected by the builders”.

"He will be with the last deliverer, (Messiah), as with the first (Moses); as the first deliverer revealed himself first to the Israelites and then withdrew, so also will the last deliverer reveal himself to the Israelites and then withdraw for a while." Midrash Ruth Rabbath 5:6

The followers of Menachem Schneerson, all Hebrew speaking, Talmud reading Jews who hailed him as Messiah, had no qualms with the Messiah coming twice to fulfill all.

Raphael Patai, has observed this in Judaic texts. Please allow me to quote him. I’m pretty sure he’s a Jewish guy, and not Christian in any way at the time of his writing the following:

When the death of the Messiah became an established tenet in Talmudic times, this was felt to be irreconcilable with the belief in the Messiah or redeemer who would usher in the blissful millennium of the Messianic age. The dilemma was solved by splitting the person of the Messiah in two: Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David.

Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts (New York: Avon Books,1979), pp. 166

I think I have made a mistake ZC. I don’t know if you ever claimed that the Messiah according to the Talmudic view of the Torah must come only once to accomplish all. You didn’t right?

None of us has the time to instantly and expertly answer every point brought up in this forum. I am patient for an excellent response from you, about this most important of matters.

Your task, “if you choose to accept it”:
1) Show me how I err in my statements questioning Noachidism (sp?), as presented.

You ever read Genesis 9? Are you going to throw PaRDeS under the bus again after making it one of your main arguments earlier?

I don’t deny PaRDeS. I’m just asking for a “connect the dots” of scripture and interpretation that went into the doctrine.

2) Tear down the Brief Case for Christianity I have made in the above two points.

You know something? I've pointed out several times that these supposedly irresitable arguments of yours have been around for two millenia and have not only failed to convince but been answered by people far more learned than I. I also realize that my arguments in response to chr*stianity have been around just as long (though I honestly believe that most chr*stians have not heard them) and over the millenia they have failed to convince the great mass of chr*stians that they are wrong in believing that J*sus is the Jewish messiah (there have been, here and there, individual Jews and chr*stians who have been swayed by these arguments and crossed over to the other side, but nothing en masse).

The bulk of the evidence at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html, was discovered in 1988. This issue was not settled centuries ago.
“People far more learned than [you]” like Rabbi Akiba, the crowd who railroaded Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus which also includes Akiba, or the gang that …
1. witnessed the start of what’s reported in Yoma 39b
2. paid no attention to the words of Rabbi Rachmon, and Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, folio 24, thus missing the fulfillment of Genesis 49:10
3. killed Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ

If you believe that this argument is going to be permanently and finally settled for all time by the you and I arguing here on Free Republic then you have an inflated sense of the intellect and importance of both of us. We will be debating these things until Messiah comes for the first time (as I believe) or for the second time (as you believe). How anyone could possibly think he had the unanswerable argument in a dispute that has occupied the finest minds in two religions for two thousand years is beyond me.

Be well. And please . . . be a little more realistic in your expectations!

My postings and vanities on www.FreeRepublic.com have elicited responses months after they were reckoned dead and buried. This vanity, and our words contained therein, will exist until the end of the world. I am simply being thorough for the sake of those who come after us. The information at http://www.direct.ca/trinity/y3nf.html is more recent than what those that are long dead knew of. I welcome all knowledge that helps edify my faith, including the challenges that I must research out. I’m also throwing you another lifeline, that you may question your faith, and come back to the Jesus who loves you more than any person ever could.

Attempting to respond in love to your challenges, helps me in my Christian walk. Digging down to bedrock truth to answer these challenges strengthens my trust that I have the very word of God in my hands in the Old and New Testaments. I can build an eternal future on the truths contained therein every day. Perhaps you are not getting anything out of this right now, and maybe not ever, but I definitely am, and am happy to continue.

From time to time, I do fail to understand a challenge to the faith handed and gifted to me. But I have never had a challenge stand for more than a few days against it. I stand on a rock, the Rock of Israel, Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ a.k.a. YHVH.

Besides, Christians who came before me, including those who left modern Judaism, have spent a lot of time and energy making sure that I would be equipped for encounters exactly like this. Who am I to shirk from this responsibility of meeting your challenges Hebraically?

From post 60 in response to MY vanity:

If you do so by quoting the "new testament," then we will get nowhere, since it is the validity and trustworthiness of the "new testament" that is the matter of dispute before us.

Back at post 60 in response to my vanity, the matter may have been as you mentioned. But since my first response to your vanity, I have attempted to turn the discussion towards the question, “Does the Tanakh / Old Testament point to Jesus Christ of the 1^st century?” I have also elected to not quote the New Testament freely, only quoting it twice after I quoted corroborating testimony from Maimonides, and also quoting it to contradict your false claims about the faith handed to us by the Son of God.

Perhaps if I am really attempting to have this discussion without the benefit of quoting the New Testament, I would have done better to have answered the question, “Does the Tanakh / Old Testament point to THE MESSIAH ARRIVING IN THE 1^st century PRECISELY WHEN JESUS DID,” and the aforementioned capitalization is used to contrast with what I said in the previous paragraph, and not to yell.

Back in my original response to your vanity, I quoted the following which is in italicized text:

The [Jewish leaders] said, 'He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.'

Matthew 9:34

And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.

Mark 3:22

On the off chance you believe that the Jews didn't kill Jesus on the charge of claiming to be God, and rather the Romans did, here are the words of Maimonides in his “Letter to Yemen”.

Jesus of Nazareth... impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.

Maimonides

How is what Maimonides reports in his, “Letter To Yemen” different from the testimony of the New Testament, aside from the fact that Maimonides did not report that Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ performed miracles?

If we were to take all of the non-Christian, extra biblical sources about Yehoshua Ha Mashiach a.k.a. Jesus Christ, we would have something approximating the following list:

1) Tacitus PAGAN 1^st century Roman Historian

2) Suetonius PAGAN Chief Secretary to Roman Emperor Hadrian

3) Josephus JEWISH 1^st century Pharisee, General, Roman Historian

4) Pliny the Younger PAGAN Roman Administrator, Author

5) Emperor Trajan PAGAN Roman Emperor

6) Talmud JEWISH Rabbis circa 70-200 A.D.

7) Lucian of Samosta PAGAN 2^nd century Greek satirist:

8) Mara Bar-Serapion PAGAN between the 1^st and 3^rd centuries

9) Maimonides JEWISH 12^th century sage

10) Philopon PAGAN 6^th century

Laying aside for a moment the New Testament, and all the writings of Christians from the 1^st and 2^nd centuries, what can we extract from these non-Christian sources which hail from Jewish and Pagan sources? I got and expanded the following list from a Josh McDowell book, where he quotes Michael Wilkins and J.P. Moreland in Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus:

1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher;

2) many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms;

3) Jesus claimed to be the Messiah

4) he was rejected by the Jewish leaders;

5) he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius;

6) despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64;

7) all kinds of people from the cities and countryside -- men and women, slave and free -- worshiped him as God by the beginning of the second century.”

The narrative of these non-Christian, extra-Biblical sources agrees strongly with that of the New Testament eyewitness testimony.

There are two objections you have so far:

Jesus is not Messiah
The New Testament is unreliable

What exactly do you believe about the New Testament? I know you reject it’s testimony that Jesus is Messiah and YHVH, but who do you believe he was given the historical record outside Christian sources? Why would the enemies of Jesus Christ lend credibility to the testimony of the New Testament by agreeing with it in many points?

Could you please give me an ordered, itemized list summarizing why you doubt the 100% accuracy of the New Testament, in light of the testimony of the ten extra-biblical sources, and the seven points of their collective narrative? I’d like to look into whether your foundational assumptions can withstand scrutiny.

When you do this, please take care not to violate Deuteronomy 25:14-16 when you do so:

You shall not have in your house different measures, a large and a small. But you shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shall you have; that your days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God gives you. For all who do such things, and all who do unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God.

Meaning this: You would be an “abomination” ZC, in the eyes of YHVH, in condemning the New Testament a.k.a. Brit Chadasa as unreliable, if you were to do so using reason or logic that could also condemn the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament. For example, you can’t say, “The New Testament is unreliable because of reason X” when reason “X” applies to the Tanakh a.k.a. Old Testament also.

Also ZC, could you please tell me why English translations by Jews for Jews of Zechariah 12:10 have varied so wildly throughout the 20^th century?

King James Version 1611 AD (not Jewish)	Jewish Publication Society 1917 (preface)	Soncino Tanakh 1965?	Jewish Publication Society 1999
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for [his] only [son], and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for [his] firstborn.	And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto Me because they have thrust him through; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.	And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look towards me, regarding those whom the nations have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only son, and shall be in bitterness over him, as one who is in bitterness for his firstborn.	And I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion; and they shall lament to Me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first-born.

King James Version

1611 AD

(not Jewish)

Jewish Publication Society 1917 (preface)

Soncino Tanakh 1965?

Jewish Publication Society 1999

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for [his] only [son], and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for [his] firstborn.

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto Me because they have thrust him through; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look towards me, regarding those whom the nations have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only son, and shall be in bitterness over him, as one who is in bitterness for his firstborn.

And I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion; and they shall lament to Me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first-born.

Have a great day ZC. Again, I am patient for a response. I would appreciate an estimate of when you will get back to me on this, but you are not required to give one. I will simply estimate by taking the geometric growth so far in the timing of our responses, and extrapolate your next one. We’re getting closer to bedrock truth!

I beg you to believe this ZC. For your sake, and the sake of those around you, consider the matter again. It is embarrassing to bounce between world-views, but it’s better to humble yourself now, rather than later.

One more thing ZC: I told my mother and father in Christ about you, and they asked me to ask you if you need prayer for anything. Do you have a sick relative or friend that needs healing? Jesus Christ is not a doctrine, or a person who died on a cross long ago. He is risen, and is at the right hand of the Father, and he loves you ZC. He also loves the people in your life more than you or I ever could. Is there someone in your life we can pray for? Better yet, is there something you desire from God that only the protagonist of Genesis 1 could deliver?

Thank you so much for reading this. It was truly a pleasure to write this.

- ROTB