Posted on 09/24/2010 11:20:38 PM PDT by bibletruth
Apostle Paul made a minister to the Gentiles for the grace of God, just as the Apostle Peter was made a minister to the circumcision.
I agree with your understanding on everything other than the New Covenant. Actually it was the Old Covenant RENEWED. Same Ten Commandments, same Covenant, only renewed. Look up New in Strongs...renewed in the Greek.
Well, most of these arguments are just based on what the Jewish understanding of the Old Testament is vs. the Christian understanding. It’s pretty hard to make any headway in arguments like this, the Jews think that Christians have misinterpreted Scripture, and the Christians think that Jews don’t correctly understand some parts of their own Scriptures, since they do not accept the revelations which hold the key.
I’m satisfied that the Christian understanding is correct, and I think someday Jews and Christians who are faithful will be in agreement. However, that’s something that will probably take a miracle from God to fully realize!
No argument there. However I find the Jewish point of view much more credible and logical than Christian. After all, Christianity is an amalgam of Judaism and Hellenism/Platonism (with a tinge of Zoroastrian spice) and that's a pretty immiscible combination.
That's correct. The Covenant is with the Jewish people and Jewish people only, and cannot be abrogated or annulled, replaced, or "made obsolete," as the Christian book of Hebrews (Ch. 8) suggests. The Covenant God made with Israel is an everlasting covenant; the Torah is to be observed forever, and therefore cannot be "fulfilled."
God also made an everlasting Covenant with the Gentiles after the Flood. Therefore a "new covenant" proposed by Christians is in conflict with God's everlasting covenant made to Noah. The Gentiles have been given the Noahide laws and that's where their obligation and dealings with the God of Israel ends.
“After all, Christianity is an amalgam of Judaism and Hellenism/Platonism (with a tinge of Zoroastrian spice) and that’s a pretty immiscible combination.”
I’d have to disagree with that statement. Christianity isn’t an amalgam of anything. Paul used arguments designed to appeal to Gentiles, who wouldn’t have understood arguments based on Jewish Scriptures, but the ideas he taught didn’t come from the Greeks, he merely put the ideas in language they could relate to.
As for the Zoroastrian angle, this is a pretty recent ploy by secularists to try to invalidate Christianity, but there’s really no evidence to support it. Zorastrianism itself is a religion that borrowed concepts freely from other religions, so any superficial similarities to Christianity could have been transferred in the opposite direction. However, even granting that the similarities existed prior to Christianity, doesn’t prove a common origin, anymore than some superficial similarities between Judaism and some Egyptian or Babylonian religous ideas means Judaism is an amalgam of those religions.
There is a lot more to Christianity than Paul, although for most Protestants he is pretty much it. That's pretty lofty for a man Thomas Jefferson described as the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus" and a man who describes himself as "all things to all men."
Paul was not so much a Hellenizer as he was an antinomianist. The only thing Paul did as far as Greek paganism was concerned was to let them off the hook as regards circumcision (which the Greeks thought was silly), and dietary laws. He knew very well the Greeks would never buy into this resurrected Jesus story he was preaching if that included Jewish dietary laws, and Jewish mitzvot in general, including the circumcision.
But the Hellenization of the Jewish sect of Jesus followers comes with John at the end of the first century, when Judaism clearly rejected any and all Christian books and teachings and called Christians apostates and usurpers (minims). Until John there is not a trace of a Platonic Jesus as a Hellenic god; but therefater Palotnism rules.
As for the Zoroastrian angle, this is a pretty recent ploy by secularists to try to invalidate Christianity, but there’s really no evidence to support it.
Uh, I knew the secularist ploy card was going to come up sooner or later. Zoroastrianism actually influenced post-Babylonian Judaism (at least the apocalyptic types, such as Essenes, or Jesus himself), who believed in "resident evil" (otherwise unknown to Judaism until then), the rebellious devil, and what not. The Jewish Christians thus carried Zoroastrian beliefs to the Gentile converts and Gentile Christians merely inherited them from their Jewish counterparts.
Zoroastrian dualism creeping into Judaism has been known for a long, long time and is not a recent "secularist ploy" to discredit Christianity. Christianity can do that all by itself without anyone's help.
Well, if you’re going to subscribe to the school that analyzes Scripture simply as literary works of men, you’re going be able to draw all sorts of fantastic conclusions. I can’t put any stock in those analyses myself.
People who subscribe to analyzing scriptures as divinely inspired draw all sorts of fantastic conclusions as well.
I can’t put any stock in those analyses myself
Why, because you have monopoly on truth?
“Why, because you have monopoly on truth?”
No, but in my opinion they’re based on a false premise, and that premise undermines the rest of their conclusions.
I believe I understand where you are coming from but perhaps not completely. It appears you are Jewish but also might be part of the Noachide sect?
(Jer 31:31 KJV) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah...
What must be distinguished here are the TWO different houses and the TWO different peoples.
Yair has published many books that are excellent in scholarship. Look him up for a good read and a good education on gentile assimilation.
Benjamin is of the House of Judah. "Jew" is a shortened form of Judah - Not the tribe, but the House (state). When the split happened, God said He would leave the tribe of Benjamin within the House of Judah because of His promise to David.
LadyL is speaking of the House (state) of Israel, as opposed to the House (state) of Judah, consisting of the ten northern tribes.
Became as gentiles, FRiend... Remember the Father said he would keep track of every seed, even though Ephraim would forget his heritage... ;)
They are the "lo ammi (not my people)." And once again, some time in the future, they will call God "ishi (husband)."
It is interesting that everywhere the disciples went, there were almost always synagogues to preach from... They were not forgotten (IMHO), until after the rise of the Roman church in the West.
We agree on that, since it applies to both sides.
It's "no" on both accounts. I am neither Jewish nor Noahide. I was babptized Chirstian (East. Orthodox), and I am not necessarily professing my beliefs but exposing what others who are also qualified (Jews) have to say about their own religion and scripture.
What must be distinguished here are the TWO different houses and the TWO different peoples
They were not different peoples, but members of the 12 tribes.
But many were not assimilated. Besides, the vast majoirty of Gentiles—Greeks and Romans, Hawaiians, Chinese, etc. are not members of the House of Israel...so the New Covenant in no way applies to them.
Add if Jesus was sent only for those "absorbed" by Assyrians, he was preaching in the wrong place (Palestine) and the wrong time (700 years later)! Obviously he considered the "lost sheep" the Pharisees and the Sadducees with whom he had heated exchanges. Besides, he wans't preaching and teaching and looking for the lost tribes in Anadolia, Assyria or Alexandria, but right, smack in Roman-occupied Israel.
(James 1:1 KJV) James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
(Gen 49:1 KJV) And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
(Ezek 37:15 KJV) The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
(Ezek 37:16 KJV) Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
(Ezek 37:17 KJV) And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
(Ezek 37:18 KJV) And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not show us what thou meanest by these?
(Ezek 37:19 KJV) Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
(Ezek 37:20 KJV) And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
(Ezek 37:21 KJV) And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
(Ezek 37:22 KJV) And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
(Ezek 37:23 KJV) Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
(Ezek 37:24 KJV) And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
Currently Ishmael who had twelve sons has approximately 235,000,000 Arab descendants. Israel has “countable” 16,000,000. So did Yahweh lie? Gen. 22, Yahweh states Isaac is Abraham's only son so Ishmael cannot be part of the Promise. According to the above figures Jacob is missing at least 220,000,000 people today. Hmmm...wonder where they are or if I choose to deny this Promise, I call Yahweh a liar. Ouch! don't think I want to do that.
You do what you want. The expression "his descendants would be 'as many as the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea'" is a typical exaggeration you read in the Bible, so it cannot be taken literally. He was looking for them in Israel, not abroad.
The Jews were supposedly in the Sinai for 40 years, most of it one place, more than one million of them according to the Bible, yet they left no trace of their presence there, not even graves. So, something is not kosher here; you take a pick.
To suggest that the 10 tribes of the House of Israel disappeared and "became" Gentiles simply does not correspond to Jesus' mission and purpose on earth.
and what part of I CAME ONLY FOR THE LOST SHEEP OF THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL do you not understand?
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