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To: DannyTN
I found this verse fascinating... Deuteronomy 32:22 - For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. ...because the last book in the Christian cannon, "Revelations", has the earth destroyed by fire. Turns out, once again, it says the same thing as the Torah.

You ignorant fool! This proves nothing but the depths of idiocy you seek to in trying to convert people who know a lot more than you.

First, that verse doesn't talk about about the destruction of the world (just like the verses in Isaiah so often cited as "prophecy" of the birth of Jesus-- i.e. a virgin shall conceive, they will call him Wonderful Counselor etc...--- aren't prophecy at all. In the original Hebrew, they are in the PAST TENSE-- i.e. a young woman HAS ALREADY CONCEIVED etc. and refer to the era of King Hezekiah).

If you had bothered to read the next few paragraphs (not to mention chapters... idiot Christian missionaries like you always cite single verses out of context), you would have seen that G-d is speaking metaphorically here. Refer a few verses down...

36Indeed the LORD will vindicate his people, have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, neither bond nor free remaining. 37Then he will say: Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, 38who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!

G-d is giving his "blessings" and "curses" to Israel-- he is warning them that their nation will be destroyed when they sin, but restored when they repent. That's it buddy.

Even if this was a prophecy of the end of the world (which is isn't), your citation to Revelations proves nothing. The authors of Revelations had access to the entire Tanakh. Simply repeating a prophecy found in Tanakh (say in Zacaraiah) doesn't "prove" anything about Revelations except that it's authors knew how to read and how to copy. I could sit down right now and write "prophecy" that the Ten Tribes shall return, the Temple restored etc.. it wouldn't prove me a prophet, just a copier.

185 posted on 10/12/2003 7:55:41 PM PDT by ChicagoHebrew
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To: ChicagoHebrew
What is your opinion of this?

And by the way could you refrain from insulting other Freepers?

186 posted on 10/13/2003 5:18:42 AM PDT by tictoc
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To: ChicagoHebrew
So according to you, when God says "a fire is kindled...and will consume the earth". He really means just Israel? What an ignorant fool I am, to think God meant what he said, instead of recognizing that He was using hyperbole. He probably didn't even mean that sin would cause us to die, He probably meant that sin would just make us to be a little uncomfortable.

If it's past tense as you claim, what son of Hezekiah was known as Mighty God and Everlasting Father?

And I found the following on Hebrew tenses....

Sometimes it is claimed that the messianic prophecies cited by Christians are in the past tense. Therefore, it is said, they cannot refer to a future, coming Messiah.

This is an invalid argument. There is no such thing as "tense" in biblical Hebrew. (Modern Hebrew, on the other hand, does have tenses.) Biblical Hebrew is not a "tense" language. Modern grammarians recognize that it is an "aspectual" language. This means that the same form of a verb can be translated as either past, present, or future depending on the context and various grammatical cues. The most well known grammatical cue is the "vav-consecutive" that makes an imperfective verb to refer to the past.

Therefore it is wrong to say that Isaiah 53 or other prophecies are in the "past tense." Biblical Hebrew has no tenses. There are many examples of what is wrongly called the "past tense" form (properly called "the perfective" or "perfect") being used for future time.

This fact was recognized by the medieval commentators as well as by modern grammarians, as shown by the following citations.

Medieval Jewish grammarian and commentator David Kimchi on the prophets' use of the perfect for future events:>/b>

"The matter is as clear as though it had already passed."

—David Kimchi, Sefer Mikhlol. Cited in Waltke, Bruce K. and O'Connor, Michael Patrick. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), p. 464 n. 45. They reference Leslie McCall, The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System: Solutions From Ewald to the Present (Sheffield: Almond, 1982), p. 8.

Rabbi Isaac ben Yedaiah (13th c.)

[The rabbis] of blessed memory followed, in these words of theirs, in the paths of the prophets who speak of something which will happen in the future in the language of the past. Since they saw in prophetic vision that which was to occur in the future, they spoke about it in the past tense and testified firmly that it had happened, to teach the certainty of his [God's] words—may he be blessed—and his positive promise that can never change and his beneficent message that will not be altered.

—Saperstein, Marc. "The Works of R. Isaac b. Yedaiah." Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1977, pp. 481-82. Cited in Daggers of Faith by Robert Chazan, Berkeley: UC Press, 1989, p. 87.

From the standard grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (section 106n, pp. 312-313):

More particularly the uses of the perfect may be distinguished as follows:—…To express facts which are undoubtedly imminent, and, therefore in the imagination of the speaker, already accomplished (perfectum confidentiae), e.g., Nu. 17:27, behold, we perish ,we are undone, we are all undone. Gn. 30:13, Is. 6:5 (I am undone), Pr. 4:2.…This use of the perfect occurs most frequently in prophetic language (perfectum propheticum). The prophet so transports himself in imagination into the future that he describes the future event as if it had been already seen or heard by him, e.g. Is. 5:13 therefore my people are gone into captivity; 9:1ff.,10:28,11:9…; 19:7, Jb. 5:20, 2 Ch. 20:37. Not infrequently the imperfect interchanges with such perfects either in the parallel member or further on in the narrative.

David ("Fortress of David," 18th c. commentary by David Altschuler) on Jeremiah 31:32:

"I will place—lit. I placed. This is the prophetic past. I will incline their hearts to keep the Torah."

—Cited in Rosenberg, A. J. Jeremiah: A New English Translation. New York: The Judaica Press, 1985, vol. 2, p. 255.

Contemporary Jewish commentator Nahum Sarna on Exodus 12:17, "for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt":

This is an example of the "prophetic perfect." The future is described as having already occurred because God's will inherently and ineluctably possesses the power of realization so that the time factor is inconsequential.

—Exodus: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), p. 59.

From the recent textbook of Biblical Hebrew, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Sec. 30.5.1.e, pp. 489-490):

Referring to absolute future time, a perfective> form may be persistent or accidental. A persistent (future) perfective represents a single situation extending from the present into the future.

Until when will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Exod 10:3 With an accidental perfective a speaker vividly and dramatically represents a future situation both as complete and as independent.

And concerning Ishmael…I will bless him. Gen. 17:20. Women will call me happy. Gen. 30:13. We will die. We are lost, we are all lost. Num. 17:27. This use is especially frequent in prophetic address (hence it is also called the "prophetic perfect" or "perfective of confidence").

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. Num. 24:17. In the past he humbled…in the future he will honor …The people walking in darkness will see a great light. Isa. 8:23-9:1. —Waltke and O'Connor [full reference given above], pp. 489-490.

187 posted on 10/13/2003 10:29:30 AM PDT by DannyTN (Note left on my door by a pack of neighborhood dogs.)
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