Was the Father's will always subordinate to the Son's will?

[Sojourner]

It wasn't my intent to question who God does and does not permit into heaven. I was just looking for a better understanding of what kind of individual you perceive the messiah to be. Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers.

[Fenris]

I was just looking for a better understanding of what kind of individual you perceive the messiah to be.

No, you were trying to pigeonhole this specific prophecy to apply to Jesus, and you explicitly stated so.

Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers.

No feathers ruffled.

You know me a long time, and you know that I'm biblically literate. If you present me with a biblical verse, you know that I already know it exists, and I know how Jews understand it, and the Jewish understanding is going to be different from the Christian understanding. 

[Fenris]

Well, I thought the Jewish messiah was an ordinary man, rather than someone hitching a ride on the clouds into heaven.

And we could revisit this.

Christians have spritualized so much of the Bible. "Israel" isn't Israel, it's Christians, or the church. "Jerusalem" isn't Jerusalem, it's heaven or where ever. But this one prophecy has to come true literally, as described, it can't be metaphorical or poetic.

[Fenris]

And that leads me to another line of thought.

I can see how Christians arrive at their conclusion.

Christians (for the most part, overwhelmingly) can't see how Jews arrive at our conclusion.


I can follow the internal logic of the NT. I think it's wrong, of course, which is why I am not a Christian. But I can see why Christians are Christian.

But Christians don't understand why Jews are Jewish. They look at the Jewish bible and can't see what Jews see, and perhaps have no interest in seeing what Jews see. Jews are not Christians "because of the rabbis and Pharisees", as someone said in this discussion, and they leave it at that. Or because of "spiritual blindness". Or because we don't know what words mean in Hebrew; in English we count "one, two, three", but in Hebrew (apparently) we count "compound unity, two, three..." Or maybe it's because "the rabbis don't let us read Isaiah 53" because if we did, we'd all be converting tomorrow.

Someone asked me to be "open minded", but is anyone here open minded enough to try and understand the bible the way that Jews understand it?

Some time ago I started a topic on the book of Deuteronomy.  All I did was post verses from the book, and reiterate what they said. Not even pushing a Jewish perspective. Just verses. Not one single person responded. 

[RabbiKnife]

Probably because of two things.

One, very few evangelicals have any appreciation for the Jewish writings, and even though they give lip service to doctrines of canonicity and inerrancy, they hold to the Jewish writings with suspicion, uncertainty, a sense of irrelevance, and superiority.

Two, given the emphasis on faith and works in the New Testamnet writings, most evangelicals get really nervous when you suggest that DOING or obedience has any value despite James’ warnings about faith without works or Paul’s admonition that we were created in Christ for good works.

It’s easier to tell someone why they are wrong than it is to simple “give an account for the hope that it within you with meekness and gentleness.”

Most of us evangelicals are too busy trying to be right that trying to simply say “this is what God did for me.”

That’s a sad commentary

[Fenris]

One, very few evangelicals have any appreciation for the Jewish writings, and even though they give lip service to doctrines of canonicity and inerrancy, they hold to the Jewish writings with suspicion, uncertainty, a sense of irrelevance, and superiority.

So why not just proclaim to be a follow of Marcion and have done? Or admit that the Jewish bible is good for proof texts and nothing else?

Two, given the emphasis on faith and works in the New Testamnet writings, most evangelicals get really nervous when you suggest that DOING or obedience has any value despite James’ warnings about faith without works or Paul’s admonition that we were created in Christ for good works.

And that is a shame.

Everyone wants to be an "intellectual" but limits it to creatively finding Jesus everywhere, including in the Hebrew word "the" (yes, it happened on the old forum). Why not try reading the bible and trying to understand it how Jews do? Wouldn't that be interesting and even "intellectual"?

[RabbiKnife]

Most evangelicals have no idea who Marcion is.

Further, most have a pop hermeneutic that begins with the end in mind and works backward. 

A proper evangelical hermeneutic, on the other hand, must FIRST:

1.  Understand the Hebrew text... not what some idiot like Jonathan (Conman) Kahn says it means because he wears a funny hat and calls himself "Rabbi"
2.  Understand what the original hearer or reader would understand the text to meant.
3.  Understand what eternal moral or spiritual principal God is teaching or requiring compliance with.
4.  Apply that principal to modern realities.

Many Christians skip straight to step 4...  Yes, a solid evangelical hermeneutic is going to take the Torah, and the  Prophets, and the Writings, and eventually make an application that a historical Jew or even a modern Jew may not make, but they have to do that based on a rational application of all four steps.

[Fenris]

Something that happened today:

An American-Israeli named Edan Alexander, who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was freed after being held in captivity for 584 days.

Today happens to be an interesting day on the Hebrew calendar.

It's the 14th of the Hebrew month of Iyar.

What significance does this have? Let's look at Numbers 9:

The Lord spoke to Moses in the Desert of Sinai in the first month of the second year after they came out of Egypt. He said,  “Have the Israelites celebrate the Passover at the appointed time.  Celebrate it at the appointed time, at twilight on the fourteenth day of this month, in accordance with all its rules and regulations.”

So Moses told the Israelites to celebrate the Passover, and they did so in the Desert of Sinai at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord commanded Moses.

But some of them could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account of a dead body. So they came to Moses and Aaron that same day and said to Moses, “We have become unclean because of a dead body, but why should we be kept from presenting the Lord’s offering with the other Israelites at the appointed time?”

Moses answered them, “Wait until I find out what the Lord commands concerning you.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites: ‘When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a journey, they are still to celebrate the Lord’s Passover, but they are to do it on the fourteenth day of the second month at twilight. They are to eat the lamb, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  They must not leave any of it till morning or break any of its bones. When they celebrate the Passover, they must follow all the regulations.

The Israelites in the desert celebrate the Passover holiday, including the eating of the sacrifice. But some of them can't eat the sacrifice, because they're ritually impure on account of having been in proximity of a human corpse. They bring up the issue to Moses, who consults with God. God says, no worries, if for some reason you can't eat the sacrifice on the appointed day, you'll get your chance to partake of the Passover sacrifice a month later instead.

In Hebrew this is referred to as the "Pesach Sheni", the "Second Passover".

Referencing the date and the situation, Edan's grandmother said "Today Edan gets to celebrate Pesach Sheni, because today he has been freed", referencing not only the date on the calendar, but also the fact the holiday if Passover celebrates the Israelites being freed from bondage in Egypt.

And I think that's beautiful.

[RabbiKnife]

I had forgotten about the second chance in the event of ceremonial uncleanliness

So glad he is home

The video was priceless. 

PS…. I can preach an entire sermon on “2nd chance Passover!”

🫢🫢🫢

[Fenris]

On June 7, 1981, Israel launched an attack against an Iraqi nuclear reactor that was about to come online. The video above has the details if anyone is interested, and it's a compelling story.

The jets flew to their target low, to stay under radar detection. On their flight back, they flew at a higher altitude and with as much speed as they could muster.

The leader of the mission, Ze’ev Raz, describes what happened:

It takes an hour and a half to get back from Iraq to Israel and we were flying 40,000 feet above the ground.

The General Staff originally wanted us to carry out the bombing after sunset so it would be harder for the Iraqis to attack us on the way back. But I was opposed to that. I thought if we did the bombing after sunset there wouldn’t be enough light and our planes would miss their target — so I insisted that the bombing take place before sunset.

As a result, we flew back as the sun was setting. But since the planes were traveling so high and at such a fast speed, the sun was out all the time and never set. It was as though it remained standing in the middle of the horizon.

At that time we pilots all radioed each other reciting the same exact biblical verse — Joshua 10:12: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, over the Valley of Ayalon.”