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8/11/2018 3:58 pm  #81


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

119 wrote:

Johannes wrote:

Your statement is based on an assumption of TaNaKH completeness, meaning that there cannot be a further divine revelation after the closure of the TaNaKH, so that if a proposition is not in the TaNaKH and cannot be deduced from it, it is necessarily false. The assumption of TaNaKH completeness does not follow directly or indirectly from the text of the TaNaKH.

I’m not “assuming” anything. Here's Maimonides:

Your quote shows just that the assumption in question is not original yours but comes from Maimonides, who, as you probably know, is no authority for Christians. And the quotes from Deuteronomy in Maimonides' passage most definitely do NOT imply that God committed Himself to not perform a further revelation later, including adding, withdrawing, or changing commandments. That is forbidden to Israel, not to God. The Torah commandments are "forever" as far as it depends on Israel, not as far as it depends on God.

Two additional points.

First, the interpretation of "It is not in the heavens." in the sense that "This teaches that a prophet can no longer add a new precept [to the Torah]." is the same as in the story of the Oven of Akhnai in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia 59b, about which two Jewish Talmud scholars wrote [1] [2]:

Jeffrey L. Rubenstein wrote:

Daniel Boyarin brilliantly observes that the way the story makes this point adds another layer to the paradox. The prooftexts cited by R. Yehoshua and R. Yirmiah, "It is not in heaven" (Deut 30:12) and "Incline after the majority" (Exod 23:2), have different - and quite opposite - meanings in their original contexts. They are interpreted by the sages to give themselves authority to overrule the divine will.

Daniel Boyarin wrote:

"It is not in heaven" is itself not in heaven. R. Yehoshua breaks it out of context and re-cites it in his own. In the Torah which is written, the verse seems to say only that the fulfillment of the Torah's commands is not beyond the reach of the human being: [quote from Deut 30:11-14 here]. R. Yehoshua transforms the verse through his citation into meaning that the Torah is beyond the reach, as it were, of its divine author. [...] Without fanfare, R. Yehoshua creates radical new meaning in this verse, simply by reinscribing it in a new context. "It is not in heaven" means not only that the Torah is not beyond human reach, but that it is beyond divine reach, as it were.

Needless to say, any Christian holds Maimonides' and R. Yehoshua's interpretations of this passage to be completely wrong and invalid.

Second, it is clear in the TaNaKH that God can add, withdraw, or change commandments not only by doing it directly Himself (which is out of discussion) but also through a human prophet. Quoting another Jewish Hebrew Bible scholar [3]:

Dr. Rabbi David Frankel wrote:

The most blatant example of a prophet who promulgates law is the exilic prophet-priest, Ezekiel. In chapters 40-48 of the Book of Ezekiel, the prophet lists many laws, never making any reference to these laws coming from Moses or “the Torah.” Strikingly, some of Ezekiel’s laws even contradict the laws of the Torah of Moses and, according to the Rabbis, the book was nearly suppressed for that reason (b. Shabbat 13b). It is likely, however, that  Ezekiel was not ignoring or polemicizing against the Torah of Moses since that Torah, as we know it today, didn’t yet exist, and wasn’t yet canonical. He was simply following the tradition of prophets quoting God and legislating directly.

119 wrote:

Catholics can believe X and not-X about Torah!

No, Catholics can hold X or not-X about the process of composition of the Torah and the historicity of the events narrated in it as a provisional human opinion which can evolve over time.

119 wrote:

Try this: “I believe with perfect faith that [Moses] was the chief of all prophets, both before and after him.”

Just a human opinion which does not follow from the Torah. And in practice it only pays lip service to Moses, since the Rabbis grant themselves the authority to reinterpret the words of the Torah as they please.

119 wrote:

A direct Prophetic experience from G-d to every single member of a Nation (“face to face”) is the greatest evidence in the history of Time. G-d thought it was such killer evidence it would work “forever.” The Israelites will believe in Moses FOREVER because of it.  According to G-d’s criterion of evidence, National Revelation is top-tier. You don’t get to define “evidence” according to Christian standards.

A view which finds little support in the TaNaKH, as noted by e.g. these two Jewish Hebrew Bible scholars [3] [4]:

Dr. Rabbi David Frankel wrote:

In light of the clear centrality and importance of the Sinai theophany in the book of Exodus, and in passages in Deuteronomy such as the one just cited,[2] it is striking to note that, in the rest of the Tanach, this event is almost totally ignored![3] Not once is the giving of Torah at Mt. Sinai explicitly referred to in the entire book of Psalms.[4] Mention can even be made of the relatively less impressive divine act of leading Israel through the wilderness (Ps. 136: 16), but the revelation and lawgiving at Sinai are nowhere to be found.The revelation at Sinai is also absent in the prophetic literature as well as from other reviews of Israel’s history, such as Deuteronomy 26:5-9; Josh. 24, and 1Samuel 12: 8. Nor do we find the lawgiving at Sinai anticipated at any point in the book of Genesis , in contrast to the exodus which is anticipated in Gen. 15.Strikingly, even the list of the encampments of the Israelites in the wilderness in Numbers 33 makes no mention of any unusual event that occurred during the stop at the Sinai wildnerness (vv. 15-16,) though reference is made to the crossing of the Sea (v. 7-8), the provision of wells and date trees at Elim (v.9), and other events that seem much more minor than the Sinai revelation. The list doesn’t even mention Mount Sinai as a stop at all. It is not until the historical review in the late book of Nehemiah that we find reference to the story of Mount Sinai in a historical summary (Neh. 9:13-16)!

Professor Hava Shalom-Guy wrote:

The addition of this supplement completes the trend already obvious in Nehemiah 9’s unique inclusion of the Sinai Revelation in its historical survey.[11] Outside the Torah’s narratives of the Sinai or Horeb revelation, only a handful of biblical texts refer to a tradition of Sinai as the place of divine residence (e.g., Deut 33:2, Ps 68:8–9, 17ff.), but none of these mention the revelation of laws on Sinai.[12]

As many scholars note, the absence of the tradition of the divine revelation at Mount Sinai/Horeb from other biblical historical surveys reflects the lack of this tradition’s centrality for their circles when these surveys were composed.[13] In contrast, its placement here highlights the centrality of the revelation of laws at Sinai concept in the Persian period.

119 wrote:

because the prophecy of Moses, our teacher, is not dependent on wonders,

On the contrary, as I already noted in a previous post:

Moses in Deuteronomy wrote:

Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him. (Deut 4:34-35)

So, I not only stand by what I said previously...

If the signs and wonders performed by YHWH to free Israel from Egypt are the evidence on the basis of which Israel may know that YHWH is God, the only God, it can be most reasonably inferred that the sign or wonder that YHWH will provide to support the claims of the false prophet of Deut 13:1-5 will NOT involve a greater degree of exercise of divine power than the degree involved at the signs and wonders performed at the Exodus. It is most illogical to think that YHWH will provide MORE apologetic evidence for Israel to believe in a false god than the apologetic evidence He provided for Israel to believe in Himself!

From the above, and from the fact that the signs and wonders performed at the Exodus - the plagues, including the death of all Egyptian firstborns, the parting of the waters, the fire, smoke, lightning and thunder at mount Sinai, - are all events that can be produced by an angel, good or evil, out of his own natural power if allowed to do so by God, it follows that the sign or wonder that YHWH will provide to support the claims of a prophet enticing Israel to go after other gods will be restricted to that kind of events and will not include any miracle which only YHWH can perform.

... but I add to it by noting that God promised in the TaNaKH that He Himself would perform specific kinds of signs and wonders to show his glory, so that it is most illogical to think that He would perform the same specific kinds of signs and wonders to support the claims of a false prophet enticing Israel to go after false gods!

The passages in question are in the book of Isaiah. In the first quote I include an allusion to those who close their eyes to the arm of the LORD:

Isaiah wrote:

Though the wicked is shown favor,
he does not learn righteousness;
he deals unjustly in the land of uprightness,
and does not perceive the majesty of the LORD.
LORD, your hand is lifted up yet they do not see it.
They see your zeal for the people and are put to shame;
Indeed, fire will devour Your enemies.
[...]
Your dead will live; their corpses will rise.
You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy!
For your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits. (Is 26:10-11,19)

And YHWH said:
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of Me is a commandment taught by men, (a)
therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;

and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.
The meek shall obtain fresh joy in YHWH,
and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. (Is 29:13-14,18-19)

(a) Quoted by Jesus in Mt 15:1-20 and Mk 7:1-23 to refer to the Pharisees' and scribes' oral traditions, the early version of the "Oral Torah".

They shall see the glory of YHWH, the majesty of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who have an anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. (Is 35:2c-6a)

Clearly, it is most illogical that God would perform, to support the claims of a false prophet, the same specific kinds of signs and wonders that He had prophesied to perform to show His own glory!

Notably, God says later on in Isaiah's book that He will perform one of those wonders by means of his Servant, and makes clear that that Servant is not the people of Israel.

Isaiah wrote:

Thus says the God, YHWH, (a)
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
Who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
“I am YHWH; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give you as a covenant for the people, (b)
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
I am YHWH; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth I tell you of them.” (Is 42:5-8)

(a) Literal translation of the Hebrew text, notably the same as the NT designation for God as "ho Theos".
(b) Therefore the Servant is not Israel.

References

[1] Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. "Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture". Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Pp 40-41.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ykQSvRqwHbEC

[2] Daniel Boyarin. "Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash". Indiana University Press, 1994. Pp 34-36.
https://books.google.com/books?id=dFme_Fl3JX4C

[3] https://thetorah.com/judaism-without-sinai/

[4] https://thetorah.com/nehemiah-9-the-first-historical-survey-in-the-bible-to-mention-sinai-and-torah/

Last edited by Johannes (8/11/2018 9:17 pm)

 

8/11/2018 5:16 pm  #82


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

119 wrote:

From your wing of the building:

This is why G-d will send them an influence that will mislead them so that they will believe the lie. (2 Thessalonians 2:11)

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. (Matthew 24:24)

This is indeed a relevant point. Let's quote the whole passage and analyze it:

The Apostle Paul wrote:

Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; whose coming is according to the working [energeian] of Satan, in every power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send to them a working [energeian] of delusion, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. (2 Thess 2:8-11)

So, the signs and wonders that the Antichrist will perform will all be "according to the working of Satan", i.e. limited to what an angel can do by his own natural power if allowed by God. This natural power can bring about a range of material phenomena, from the physically very dangerous like the fire from heaven which killed Job's sheep and shepards (Job 1:16) to the kind of impressive audiovisual effects at play in the second and third of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness. The book of Revelations gives a specific detail:

The Apostle John wrote:

It [i.e. the second beast] performs great signs, so that it even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. (Rev 13:13)

To note:

- It does not say "the appearance of fire" but "fire", real fire.

- Most importantly, is says "it even", meaning that's the most it can do. So, the range of signs and wonders of falsehood from the Antichrist will not include works that only God can perform, above all resurrecting a dead human being.

 

Last edited by Johannes (8/11/2018 5:28 pm)

 

8/11/2018 8:42 pm  #83


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

Just some supplementary stuff. This thread will be a good resource for those interested:

Debate of the Century

Learn Isaiah with Rabbi Tovia Singer

Why Did the Rabbis Nearly Ban the Book of Ezekiel?
 
A Rabbi Cross-Examines the New Testament

Did the Church Replace Israel?

Deuteronomy 18 Says What?

Isaiah’s Suffering Servant

A Rational Approach to the Divine Origin of Judaism


Saw this today. Compared to some Noachides I'm a secular humanist by comparison. Often it helps to occupy the shoes of someone who holds a different view. Consider this vantage:

While I have no use for Soros, his son, multiculturalism, the so-called "Jewish leadership," or even for how "Jewishness" is mostly defined these days (as a "minority group" instead of as the Chosen People), this article is anti-Semitic and doesn't belong on Free Republic. The Jew-haters who latched on to Donald Trump's coattails should be purged from this forum.

It is too bad that so many people don't know the first thing about Judaism--including most Jews, unfortunately. Let me spell it out for you:

The greatest nation that ever existed is not the United States of America. Not even if you turn the clock back to the 50's, pre-Civil War, or even the founding.

The greatest nation that ever existed was not in medieval Europe. It never had a bill of rights or a "magna charta" because it didn't need any of those things. It existed before chrstianity ever came to be. It was ancient, Biblical Theocratic Israel, the one and only truly Theocratic society to ever exist on this earth. Who needs bills of rights or magna chartas when your laws come from G-d Himself?

I support the current State of Israel for one reason and one reason only: the possibility that it may contain, in embryonic form, the fully restored Torah State of ancient times. That's it. I care nothing for a secular "refuge state." I have Facebook friends who are religious Zionists and I have Facebook friends who are militantly anti-Zionist (from the Charedi perspective).

Yes, the current "official Jewish leadership" is secular, radical, anti-morality (including universal Noahide morality), and so forth. But they are usurpers. The true "official Jewish leadership" always was, is, and ever shall be the Torah Sages, the successors of Moses.

I have books that tell when everything in the Bible actually happened (did you know that Abraham was 58 when Noah died?). I have books about the Torah Codes, the secrets of the calendar, the Hebrew alphabet, etc. Soros, Schumer, and their ilk, and certainly their enlightenment-based ideology, are not even part of my worldview. I fell in love with the Children of Israel when my first grade teacher read us Bible stories in class, and I simply do not understand how anyone would discount this greatest of all heritages for the simple and stupid reason that for the blink of an eye (which is what the past few hundred years are in Jewish history) the leadership was seized by "enlightenment" radicals. How can anyone be so stupid as to actually believe that what Soros or Schumer or any of the "alphabet" agencies somehow overrules the G-d of Israel? The phony "rabbis" from the heretical movements I can understand, but to consider George Soros the kohen gadol? To me it is and will always be unjustified idiocy.

 No one despises secular Jews (who didn't even exist until some two hundred odd years ago) more than I do for one very good reason: anti-Semites can accuse "the Jews" of everything under the sun, but they can't prove it. Only secular Jews can "prove" it. While it is a great mitzvah to love every Jew, I must confess that I am not there yet. My feeling right now is that unless they make full repentance and return to the Torah, I will never forgive them. Never.

However, I find other conservatives to be most hypocritical in their attacks on the Chosen People (and no one else) as the source of all the evil in the world. Liberalism was not created by the Jews, but by the rationalism of the Renaissance and the "enlightenment." The "enlightenment" created our country and gave it the non-Torah concepts which have inevitably grown into the monsters they have become. The Magna Charta, which was granted by King John at sword point has morphed into most people's minds as "universal G-d-given rights" but they were not always seen that way. Edmund Burke supported the American Revolution because the English people are the heirs of the tradition that began at Magna Charta, and the Americans were being cheated of their birthright as Englishmen--not because their universal G-d-given rights were being violated!

Is it any surprise that what began as an extraction from a king at sword point of those original rights has now come to the point where hippies block hospital emergency rooms until dogs get the right to vote???

And chrstians who pat themselves on the back because "the poor Jews can't help it; they didn't recognize the messiah" are hypocrites as well. Do you honestly see no connection whatsoever between the chrstian revolution (in which so many things that were once mandatory became forbidden and so many things that were forbidden became mandatory) and the current inversion of the moral order? If G-d can "change His mind" and replace the Torah with something else (and please don't give me that "fulfillment" garbage), then He can change His mind on anything!

There is only one solution to the world's dilemma but no conservative mentions it. It isn't the restoration of the eighteenth century "age of reason" which got us here in the first place. We can all be governed by Divine Law. What is preferable to that? All other systems, wherever they may be on the political spectrum, are man-created. The Torah was written by G-d.

All the various right wing nationalisms of the world, which dream of restoring some ancient Edenic past to Italy or Germany or Spain or Romania or wherever are frauds. They are fakes. They are counterfeit. I have no use for these "kinist" chromosome worshipers to whom G-d is a mere creation of an ethnoculture. Jewish nationalism is the true coin from which all these counterfeits have been copied! How can anyone not see that? That wasn't Spain, or Italy, or Germany, or Romania, or even the USA in the Bible . . . that was ISRAEL. Anyone who seizes this example and then tries to apply it elsewhere while denying it to the people to whom it really belongs is a, forgive my language, low down snake.

The answer is worldwide Theocracy, under the One True G-d--nothing else. And if there were only 36 Torah True Jews in the world, hidden to all and known to none, and if every other single Jew in the world were (in the words of an old Johnny Carson routine) a "bribe-taking, gay, Communist, peeping tom wife beater" my position and beliefs would be exactly the same as they are right now. And I'm sorry, but if you are rejecting the True Theocratic Fulfillment of the world because of liberal Jews who have internalized the chrstian definition of the Jews as free-thinking, subversive, iconoclastic rebels, then you are a fool. You and I don't even live in the same world.
 
I have literally dreamed about the Third Holy Temple at night. I will never witness the Jewish People and Judaism slandered by such as this article and keep silent.

Never. Free Republic 2018

Last edited by 119 (8/12/2018 12:27 am)

 

8/11/2018 9:58 pm  #84


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

And the relevance of that rambling in a thread with subject "Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?" is...?

Back to the thread subject, I will summarize the conclusions on the two postulates of the Sola Torah position that I have reached in this thread.

JP.ST.P1, Torah completeness: The Torah contains, explicitely or implicitely, all truths about God and his design, so that any proposition about God or his design which is not in the Torah and cannot be deduced from it is necessarily false and points to a false god.

- Neither in the Torah nor can be inferred from it.

- Intrinsically null regarding further revelation of truths or commandments by God Himself.

- Positively contradicted regarding further revelation by Isaiah 48:6b-7.

- Positively contradicted in practice regarding commandments by Ezekiel chapters 40-48.

JP.P2: The signs or portents supporting the claims of the false prophet predicted in Deut 13:1-5 can include any miracle that only God can perform.

- Neither in the Torah nor can be inferred from it.

- Most illogical per Deut 4:34-35, which states that the signs and wonders performed by YHWH to free Israel from Egypt are the evidence on the basis of which Israel may know that YHWH is God, the only God.

- Independently from the previous point, most illogical regarding the specific signs and wonders performed by Jesus per Isaiah 26:10-11,19; 29:13-14,18-19; 35:2c-6a; 42:6-8. (Post #81, from the paragraph beginning "... but I add to it by noting".)

- Independently from the above points, most illogical regarding the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus per Isaiah 51:9-10; 52:10; 53:1 and the rest of chapter 53. (Post #73, from the paragraph beginning "In order to discern".)

Therefore both postulates are false.

Thus, since the Nicene doctrine of a consubstantial Trinity and the Chalcedonian doctrine of the Incarnation are compatible with classical theism and the Torah (once the postulate of Torah completeness is abandoned), establishing the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus is all that is needed to establish the truth of Christianity.

PD1: Edited just to add links to two previous posts covering specific points.

PD2: Edited to change "rant" to "rambling".

Last edited by Johannes (9/10/2018 3:29 pm)

 

8/11/2018 10:42 pm  #85


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

My "rant" contained links that might provide some context to the verses in your Rorschach. What part of "supplementary stuff" was unclear? Often it helps to occupy the shoes of someone who holds a different view. Judaism is not Christianity minus Jesus. Not by a lightyear. The quoted post might awaken some to the VAST differences.

You're quoting Isaiah? What's up with that? Yesterday it was Deutero-Isaiah. Did the majority of NT scholars [sic] decide it was written by some guy named Isaiah? Yay!

If I accepted the NT's authority to interpret the TaNaKH I'd be a christian, just like you would only accept the koran's authority to interpret the NT if you were already a muslim. We've been over this. It's gettin' old. Squaresville daddy-o. From an Older post:

119 wrote:

Who do you think canonized the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim? [...] How do you know all those prophets you're always quoting were the Real Deal? Cuz the catholic church said so?!

Johannes wrote:

Yes. Starting with Jesus as Head of the Church, since He quoted some of them Himself as divinely inspired Scripture, following with the Apostles quoting other books in their NT writings, and ending with the pronouncement of the divinely-assisted (according to a promise by Jesus) Church Magisterium on those books not quoted directly in the NT.

 
You're quoting secular "scholars" who deny the Sinai Revelation and a circle of Isaiahs to prove your points?  Take a step back. Isaiah(s)' prophecies confirm the status of Jesus and we know Isaiah(s) were prophets because Jesus quoted them. That doesn't have much oomph.

Johannes wrote:

JP.ST.P1, Torah completeness: The Torah contains, explicitely [sic] or implicitely [sic], all truths about God and his design, so that any proposition about God or his design which is not in the Torah and cannot be deduced from it is necessarily false and points to a false god.

This includes the Oral Torah, right? Or it's not even a straw man.

These inter-faith pow wows promise so much yet accomplish so little. Christians affirm the consequent by instinct. And the two positions represent radically different conceptual paradigms. There is no "Judaeo-Christian tradition," anymore than a Judaeo-Zen Buddhist tradition. 

A Noachide's Response To Christianity frames the fundamental meta-differences that are often overlooked. Each side is starting from incompatible frameworks. This follow-up covers a lot of ground. And this. The christian conception of X (for MANY X) is different from Judaism's idea.

Last edited by 119 (8/11/2018 11:57 pm)

 

8/11/2018 11:52 pm  #86


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

119 wrote:

You're quoting Isaiah? What's up with that? Yesterday it was Deutero-Isaiah. Did the majority of NT scholars [sic] decide it was written by some guy named Isaiah? Yay!

Whether the Isaiah of Is 1:1 wrote the whole book or some parts of the book had other human authors is utterly irrelevant for divine inspiration. We've been over this. It's gettin' old.

119 wrote:

If I accepted the NT's authority to interpret the TaNaKH I'd be a christian, just like you would only accept the koran's authority to interpret the NT if you were already a muslim. We've been over this. It's gettin' old. Squaresville daddy-o.

Where did I in my previous post resort to the NT to interpret the TaNaKH? I resorted only to reason and the TaNaKH itself.

What I did in my previous post was to apply texts of Isaiah to evaluate the events in the Gospel narrative, which is precisely the whole point of this discussion: if Jesus' miracles, passion, death and resurrection were in fact as narrated in the Gospels, what conclusion can we draw on those events from the TaNaKH?

119 wrote:

You're quoting secular "scholars" who deny the Sinai Revelation and a circle of Isaiahs to prove your points?

Re the Hebrew Bible scholars, it should be clear that I quoted Dr. Rabbi David Frankel and Professor Hava Shalom-Guy not to make an argument of authority, but because I agreed with the conclusions they reached by historical-critical exegesis. And out of intellectual honesty, of course.

As the different authors of the book of Isaiah were not contemporary to one another, they were not a team or circle. Enough of this.

119 wrote:

Take a step back. Isaiah(s)' prophecies confirm the status of Jesus and we know Isaiah(s) were prophets because Jesus quoted them. That doesn't have much oomph.

No, I do NOT need Isaiah's prophecies to confirm the status of Jesus. Jews need it.

119 wrote:

We need to clarify something:

JP.ST.P1, Torah completeness: The Torah contains, explicitely or implicitely, all truths about God and his design, so that any proposition about God or his design which is not in the Torah and cannot be deduced from it is necessarily false and points to a false god.

This includes the Oral Torah, right? Or it's not even a straw man.

It most definitely does NOT include it. Christians deny that there was a divinely revealed Oral Torah on two mutually independent bases:

- from reason: the reasons set forth by the Karaites, as in this section of their wiki entry;

- from Christian revelation: the words of Jesus in Mk 7:6-13.

BTW, the reason why in the Old Covenant there was no divinely revealed Oral Torah while in the New Covenant there is a divinely revealed Apostolic Tradition and a divinely assisted Church Magisterium is because the Old Covenant was meant to last a short time, just until Jesus came, while the New Covenant is meant to last a long time.

And no, I did not write the last paragraph to convince anyone of anything, but only to show the logical self-consistency of the Catholic position. (The Protestant position, in contrast, is Sola Scriptura for both Covenants, each with their respective Scriptures.)

Last edited by Johannes (8/12/2018 1:40 pm)

 

8/12/2018 12:13 am  #87


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

So Karaite Judaism is considered normative by Christianity? 

Where does the Written Torah describes how to perform wave offerings vs. heave offerings? What on earth is Deut. 6:8 talking about? What kind of work is prohibited on the Sabbath? How many mistakes render a Torah Scroll un-kosher?

 

8/12/2018 7:56 pm  #88


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

119 wrote:

So Karaite Judaism is considered normative by Christianity?

It depends on what you mean by "normative".

On the one hand, all Christians share with Karaites the view that the traditions that later formed the "Oral Torah" were developed and passed on by Pharisees and scribes starting from around 150 bC without the involvement of divine inspiration. This is a logical conclusion from the TaNaKH, history and the nature of the Mishna text itself. For Christians, also, it was positively taught by Jesus.

On the other hand, the position of Sola Scriptura suffers inherently from the canon problem, i.e. how to determine the list (canon) of the inspired books which comprise Scripture. In the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the canon is determined by the Church Magisterium on the basis of Apostolic Tradition, and both OT canons are broader than the Jewish TaNaKH, the Eastern Orthodox OT canon being broader than the Catholic. Protestants, in contrast, adopt the Rabbis' decision on the OT canon just as Karaites do. Which in the case of Protestants is plainly nonsensical, as it amounts to assuming that the very same people who were unable to interpret the Scriptures correctly and to recognize their fulfillment in Jesus were nevertheless divinely assisted to identify correctly the books that comprise it! When in fact the very reason why they rejected some of the "Apocrypha" was their being used by Christians...
 

Last edited by Johannes (8/12/2018 7:57 pm)

 

8/13/2018 1:39 am  #89


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

Johannes wrote:

BTW, the reason why in the Old Covenant there was no divinely revealed Oral Torah while in the New Covenant there is a divinely revealed Apostolic Tradition and a divinely assisted Church Magisterium is because the Old Covenant was meant to last a short time, just until Jesus came, while the New Covenant is meant to last a long time.  

Obviously it was meant to last a short time. The Torah plainly says its statutes are temporary and will be fulfilled by Jesus, the son of G-d:

And I will establish My covenant between Me and between you and between your seed after you THROUGHOUT their generations as an EVERLASTING COVENANT. (Genesis 17:7)

And [Passover] shall be for you as a memorial, and you shall celebrate it as a festival for the L-rd; THROUGHOUT your generations, you shall celebrate it as an EVERLASTING STATUTE. (Exodus 12:14)

Thus shall the children of Israel observe the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath THROUGHOUT their generations as an EVERLASTING COVENANT. Between Me and the children of Israel, it is FOREVER a sign that [in] six days The L-rd created the heaven and the earth, and on the seventh day He ceased and rested. (Exodus 31:16-17)

 [This is] an ETERNAL STATUTE for ALL your generations, in all your dwelling places: You shall not eat any blood or fat. (Lev. 3:17)

[Yom Kippur] is a Sabbath of rest for you, and you shall afflict yourselves. It is an ETERNAL STATUTE. (Lev. 16:31)

And you shall celebrate [Succoth] as a festival to the Lord for seven days in the year. [It is] an ETERNAL STATUTE throughout your generations [that] you celebrate it in the seventh month. (Lev. 23:41)

It couldn’t be any clearer that these were "meant to last a short time"!

***

If there weren’t any additional instructions, how did Israel observe the following:

This month shall be to you the head of the months; to you it shall be the first of the months of the year. (Exodus 12:2)  Which month did He have in mind?

Therefore, on the sixth day, He gives you bread for two days. Let each man remain in his place; let no man leave his place on the seventh day (Ex. 16:29) What place? His home, neighborhood, city?

[This is] an ETERNAL statute for all your generations, in all your dwelling places: You shall not eat any fat or any blood. [Lev. 3:17] What did He mean by “fat”?  There’s different types. Are some okay and some prohibited? How do they tell?

What’s the deal with circumcision (Gen. 17:10-14) and booths (Lev. 23:42)?  There’s no details given. What’s a “booth”? How much needs to be cut off in circumcision? Sure hate to botch this.

"And you shall admonish them concerning the statutes and the teachings, and you shall make known to them the way they shall go and the deed[s] they shall do." (Ex. 18:20)  If the written law is all that was given, what was Moses supposed to tell them?

And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for ornaments between your eyes. And you shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates. (Deut. 6:8-9) What does this refer to? The text – all by itself – is baffling. There must have been additional instructions given to clarify.

If a matter eludes you in judgment, between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, or between lesion and lesion, words of dispute in your cities, then you shall rise and go up to the place the L-rd, your G-d, chooses. And you shall come to the Levitic kohanim and to the judge who will be in those days, and you shall inquire, and they will tell you the words of judgment. And you shall do according to the word they tell you, from the place the L-rd will choose, and you shall observe to do according to all they instruct you. According to the law they instruct you and according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left. (Deut. 17:8-11)

But anyone can peruse the Torah. What other “words of judgment” are needed and where do they come from? It sounds like HaShem is giving someone the absolute authority to interpret Torah Law as it applies to cases not already covered, like a Torah equivalent of the Apostolic Church: “You shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left.”

If the place the Lord, your God, chooses to put His Name there, will be distant from you, you may slaughter of your cattle and of your sheep, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat in your cities, according to every desire of your soul. (Deut. 12:21)

The verses before and after 21 prohibit the eating of blood and certain animals. How should the critters be killed? "As I have commanded." Commanded where? And how? With a club, a knife? How should the meat be prepared? The text is either referencing something that doesn’t exist, or citing something not written but taught by other means.

From a former Catholic:

I of course reject the Karaite religion, and it has never held an attraction for me. Part of the reason is that before becoming a practicing Noahide, I spent six years in the Catholic Church and then investigated the Eastern Churches. Even as a Catholic, I had long since rejected the idea out of hand that the Bible alone, without an authoritative interpretive tradition, could be correctly understood. Your correspondent obviously comes from a religious background from which he is predisposed to believe in what is called a “sola scriptura” worldview.

One important point to could make is that even in Catholicism “sola scriptura” is a heresy, and that Protestantism is a more recent invention. But if he replies with “but that is where the ancient Church went wrong” (i.e., in rejecting “sola scriptura”), I don’t know how to reply to him. In that case he may still be hung up on the old Catholic-Protestant debate, which has no place in the Noahide world. While it is good that he has rejected false “gods,” he also needs to reject the entire context in which the Protestant-Catholic debate takes place. Of course, the problem here is that this same debate existed within Judaism centuries earlier between the Karaites and the Rabbis. It just seems to me that if he had thoroughly investigated all the forms of the Church prior to coming to Noahism he would have already have rejected “sola scriptura,” and the Karaite position would not have appealed to him.

If he is so dedicated to the genuine Karaite tradition, I can give no new arguments that are not available elsewhere from Great Sages. I can only repeat them, perhaps in simplified language. The ultimate form of G-d’s Word is the Torah Scroll. This is not a machine-typed document such as most modern people are familiar with. (The fact that Protestantism began only after the invention of the printing press explains in part their seeming belief in a self-interpreting Bible, since they have no historical memory of when books had to be copied by hand). Rather, it is a hand-copied scroll that is written according to the strictest of all known rules. These ancient rules for copying Torah Scrolls are not written in the Torah Scroll! What greater refutation of the Karaite position could exist? For if there is no certain Divine Tradition outside what is written explicitly in the Torah, Prophets and Hagiographa, these rules do not exist (G-d forbid!). Then anyone could write or produce a “Torah” of any kind, and it would be considered valid. Ironically, the Karaites’ reliance on the text alone, since it does not include the rules for writing the Torah, would have destroyed the unchanging, uniform text and appearance of the Torah. It is the orally transmitted rules that assure that every “kosher” Torah Scroll is an exact duplicate of the first Torah Scroll written by Moses, which was itself an earthly duplicate of the Great Heavenly Torah Scroll written by Blessed G-d in letters of “black fire upon a scroll of white fire 974 generations before the Creation.” If there were no authentic Laws of G-d that were passed down orally, then there would be no blueprint for reproducing the Heavenly Scroll on earth. Then all we would have today at best would be the words alone without the crowns, spaces, sizes, shapes, etc. which define the “kosher” scribal letters and the words in the Torah Scroll.

Furthermore, the written text dictated to Moses by G-d was consonants only and had no written vowels. The vowels, which are 100% necessary for words to exist, are part of the Oral Tradition and not the Written Torah. It is true that the machine-printed Bibles we buy today have the vowels (as well as the other pronunciation marks), but this is no different from the Rabbinic commentaries the same books have: they are not part of the dictated text but the Authoritative Oral Tradition without which the written text would be useless to us, G-d forbid.

On top of this, there is the fact that by their very nature the Karaites themselves (like their counterparts in other heretical religions) are inconsistent. It is not possible to interpret 100% of the Bible in a 100% obvious sense. Someone is going to make an authoritative interpretation, even if he insists he is merely reading “the plain text.” The Karaites have in fact their own “unwritten tradition” which they follow.

The Karaites are not the first rejecters of the Oral Tradition, of course. The Saduces used the “plain text” argument as an excuse to reject all manner of spiritual and supernatural concepts, to a degree which would probably horrify your correspondent. I once met a young man who was “Torah only” (he didn’t even accept the Prophets and Hagiographa), and he rejected the Afterlife.

Without the Oral Torah all is chaos. I do not deny for a moment that the Oral Tradition can indeed be mysterious, opaque, confusing at times, seemingly self-contradictory, and that sometimes mountains seem to be suspended by threads, or even to float in the air. However, this merely means we should humble ourselves in the face of our lack of understanding. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said that this was the only reason the Sages seemed to disagree with each other — to teach us humility. In the end, where else is there to turn? Where else do we go for Truth? “Sola scriptura” is impossible, and all the other competing oral traditions are false and impostures. There is only Torah, Written and Oral, handed down to us by the unbroken chain of Sages, or there is nothing. Without this Oral Tradition which your correspondent condemns as false, the Written Torah would not even have been preserved intact and correctly into the second generation after Sinai. What more is there to say?

Last edited by 119 (8/13/2018 2:23 am)

 

8/14/2018 2:02 am  #90


Re: Is your belief in Christianity contingent on historical evidence?

119 wrote:

Dave wrote:

Look, the question right now is whether or not G-d Himself ever acts miraculously - which is to say, by His primary causality - to establish falsehood. Now, I suggest that false signs are always caused by creatures, in an attempt to draw us away from G-d. That I personally happen to believe that the creatures in question do this as an act of rebellion against the Creator is of secondary importance. Even if they're on His payroll, the point remains the same - there is no evidence that G-d Himself ever gets His hands dirty. This simple fact tells us that your interpretation of Deuteronomy 13 is questionable at best.

You look, if it’s such a “simple fact,” demarcate primary causation from secondary causation when none of the secondary layers have an autonomous free will.

Secondary causation is just another way of referring to instrumental causation - the stick that moves a stone because it was moved by the hand. The sun is a secondary cause. The wind is a secondary cause. Trees are secondary causes. I dare say that most secondary causes of which mankind is aware lack autonomous free will. Blaming G-d for evils caused by Satan is (on the theory you've espoused) a bit like blaming Him for evils caused by falling trees.

 HaSatan is just a messenger doing his job. How does giving a command to a being that has no free will absolve G-d of responsibility? I look forward to seeing the primary-secondary causation flowchart, and the moral theory where all responsibility vanishes in the secondary cause.

The distinction between primary and secondary causes is fundamental to Classical Theism. Maimonides himself used it for the purposes of theodicy, asserting that "it cannot be said of God that He directly creates evil, or He has the direct intention to produce evil: this is impossible." (Guide to the Perplexed, Part III, Chapter X) 

Your position requires this.

Not necessarily. My position doesn't require that the secondary cause have free will, merely that it be secondary. Compare: G-d occasionally allows people to be deceived by coincidental links between astronomical phenomena and earthly affairs. The astronomical causes responsible for the deception are utterly lacking in free will, and are only doing what G-d has ordained that they do. Prima facie, there's even less room for absolving G-d of blame here than there was in the case of Satan, since these secondary causes don't even have minds, let alone free will. And yet, this is not the case. 

---

It would be good to recall what occasioned this discussion of signs and tests: viz, your assertion that true miracles - in the sense of events that G-d alone is capable of causing - are no sure sign of G-d's approval; that they are sometimes worked by G-d in the ministries of false prophets, and that G-d does this to test the faithful.

Now, we know that G-d, as the First Cause, is ultimately responsible for everything. So, the question at hand is not whether He is responsible for something, but rather whether or not He is directly responsible for it.

So...

Dave wrote:

Even if Satan's on G-d's payroll, my point remains the same: G-d Himself manifestly did not cause harm to Job directly, but rather permitted Satan to do so.

If you "permit" someone else to molest your children is there any “dirt” on your hands? Discuss.

Not in the relevant sense. Not directly, as it would have been had He personally exnihilated raiders to steal Job's things, rather than allowing Satan to get a hold of local Sabean and Chaldean raiders for the purpose.

Dave wrote:

If G-d Himself admits that His direct action isn't a sure guide to the truth of a prophet's message, then how do we know that the Torah itself isn't the test and Moses the false prophet? If what He Himself does is no sure guide to the truth, why should we trust His Torah? 

From which standpoint would this be true?

That of somebody who has no prior commitments with respect to such things. What we have are two reports of events that, had they occurred, could only have been caused by G-d. For one, the evidence has been obscured by the ravages of time. For the other, the evidence has survived and is clear to this day. 

This person meets up with another - one who holds to truth of the former report - who insists that, while the latter report may well be true, it was G-d testing the faithful, not testifying to a true prophet.

This introduces into the mind of the first person a troubling possibility - that G-d's actions and G-d's will needn't be connected. But this applies equally well to both events, the only difference between the two being that the former report describes events that occurred long before those described in the latter. As such, the person becomes skeptical of all claims of Divine Revelation - not because he thinks it unlikely, but because he thinks that revelation, as such, isn't evidence at all!

Now, suppose that this person revisits both reports, and goes over them with a fine toothed comb, searching for what they have to say about G-d's direct action in the world. Suppose also that he finds that neither report shows G-d's direct action ever misleading anyone.

Will he not conclude that the argument offered by the second person - that G-d's direct action and G-d's will needn't be connected - was specious?

And that being the case, will he not incline first towards the report for which the evidence has survived?

And by means of that report, proceed to accept the earlier report, insofar as the earlier sets the stage for the latter?

And will he not be within his epistemic rights to interpret the earlier report by the later report, since it is on the basis of the latter that he accepts the former?

Which prior revelation said any such thing? Deut. 13 isn’t referring to Moses.

We are approaching the issue, as far as we can, from a neutral perspective. There is no prior revelation to which we may appeal. The Torah and the Gospel alike are on trial.

The Israelites will believe in “My servant Moses” because of a direct Prophetic experience (“face to face”). The Sinai revelation was a unique genus of evidence altogether. This Singularity of Evidence then sets an epistemic standard.

You seem to be confusing quality of evidence with quantity of witnesses. More people had the Vision of G-d appearing at Sinai than saw the Risen Christ. But Resurrection as such is not inferior in quality to the Vision at Sinai - for Resurrection as such can only occur by the direct action of G-d, just as a genuine Prophetic Vision can only come from G-d Himself.

A prophet who performs miracles attributed to false deities doesn’t count as evidence at all.

Then we run into yet another issue: Christ doesn't fit that description. The Trinity is no more idolatry than the Sefirot in Kabbalah, the "Wisdom" of Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24, Philo's Logos, etc. 

 Deut. 13 is a statement precluding subsequent evidence from the standpoint of a direct Revelation from A-mighty G-d.  

This is a thing you say, and yet it goes beyond anything that can be found in the text itself.

Dave wrote:

One and the same epistemological standard must be applied to all prophets.

Not according to your Bible. Where are you getting this? Prove it. Moses was not just another prophet. He was THE Prophet.

Where am I getting this? Epistemic consistency. It's something that matters a great deal to me. Every test has to be applicable universally throughout its domain, not merely where one wants it to be applied. 

As such, we start from a situation where Moses isn't even a prophet, let alone THE prophet. We start with a basic knowledge of natural theology, a set of texts, and some principles of historiography. Using those, we attempt to identify prophets as effectively as we are able, with full knowledge of our own epistemic limitations.

If and when we identify a figure with a high probability of having been a genuine prophet, we must take a leap of faith - not in the sense of believing without reason, but in the sense of committing without reservation to a merely probable proposition. Then, and only then, will we have access to a G-d Given standard of judging other prophets. 

Dave wrote:

It's interesting to note that the one who bragged that he could justify his beliefs without faith now flirts with fideism - "G-d said it, I believe it, that settles it."

What’s interesting are the cheapshots you’re using. I said this in the context of Theism and the Kuzari Principle.

Indeed. And now you are saying that taking Moses at his word entails interpreting his words in a vacuum, divorced from all philosophy, exegesis, and historical argument. 

Then I mentioned a few references about the Torah being "everlasting," "eternal," "forever," "for all your generations."

Interestingly, from a quick check of the Hebrew, the word translated "everlasting," "eternal," and "forever" turns out to be Strong's 5769 - in every single verse you cited in that post.

Strictly speaking, the term means "for an age" or "to indefinite futurity." 

In Genesis 17:8, it is applied to Israel's possession of Canaan - from which they have often been exiled.

In Genesis 49:26, it is applied to hills - which even man can destroy or produce by his own efforts.

In Exodus 21:6, it is applied to the duration of a slave's service - which can be but a single human lifespan.

In Joshua 4:7, it is applied to the stones that were placed in the Jordan as a memorial of their crossing into the promised land - which stones have been buried under the silt of that river for centuries.

In Joshua 8:28, it is applied to the desolation of Ai - the mound Et-Tell, which was resettled in Iron Age I.

If you want, I could go on, but it's rather tedious typing all of these out. Suffice it to say, the word "forever" or "eternally" isn't quite a perfect match for Strong's 5769. 

Dave wrote:

So if I warn you that I'm going to lie, it means that my future lie isn't actually a lie? That's not how lies work.

If you receive a test, the parameters of which are specified, and you have the opportunity to fail the test, this necessarily involves a “lie”?

It does if the test boils down to "don't listen when someone lies to you." 

How do lies work?

A lie is a false statement made with the intention to deceive. 

Was this a lie:

And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”

Since when do imperative sentences have truth-values? 

G-d tests people in ways that could most charitably be described as brutal.

Where have I denied this? My focus has been extremely specific: on G-d's direct, miraculous actions, and their relationship to true and false messages.

He told Abraham to slaughter his boy (but didn’t really mean it)!

Tell me, where in the Hebrew does G-d tell Abraham that Isaac had to be killed?

This probably sounds like an odd question, given the context, so I will explain.

Hebrew, as used by the authors of the Tanakh, had a much smaller vocabulary than we do today - only about 8,000 words, compared to the 650,000 in modern English. As such, many words have to do "double duty" when we make the jump from the former to the latter.

The Hebrew has no word that means "offering" per se, but rather a set of words that refer to "going" or "ascent." In this case, the relevant words are Strong's 5927 (which is a verb meaning "to go" or "to ascend") and Strong's 5930 (which is the "noun-ified" active participle of Strong's 5927, which usually refers to sacrifices, but occasionally means "ascent" - or even "stairs" in Ezekiel 40:26!).

Used together in this sort of context, the typical assumption would, indeed, be that of a burnt offering. However, strictly speaking, G-d would have been within His linguistic rights to count the task completed as soon as Isaac was on top of the altar!

In short, what G-d asked was for Abraham to "put up" his son Isaac, which He really did mean - seeing as Abraham wasn't stopped until after Isaac had been "put up." 

According to what standard is Abraham’s test a nice one from a nice Teacher but using false prophets is too mean cuz it’s wong to lie?

My arguments have nothing to do with "niceness." They have to do with G-d's direct action and its relation to false messages.

According to Rashbam:

"This prophet makes his pronouncements with the full force of enormous authority. He has performed wonders; he has seen into the future. By virtue of his stature, he is regarded as a sacred religious figure. His direction to engage in idolatrous practices carries with it his full authority. Immense courage, confidence in one’s convictions, and clarity are required to resist and oppose such an imposing figure. Mounting this resistance and denouncing this established religious icon as a charlatan can only occur through a process of painful soul-searching, value clarification and an iron-willed commitment to Torah-true ideals even in the face of certain condemnation from an established religious leader. However, one who passes through the gauntlet of this challenge will emerge a giant."

Note the discussion of the test:

You should not listen to that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for Hashem your G-d tests you to know whether you love Hashem your G-d with your entire hearts and your entire souls. (Sefer Devarim 13:4)

The passage above discusses the false prophet. This person has established his credibility as a prophet through either performing a wonder or through consistently, successfully predicting future events. The prophet exposes himself as a charlatan by directing the people to adopt idolatrous practices. As explained, it is completely inconceivable that a true prophet under any circumstances would issue such instructions. Therefore, any claimant to prophecy who does direct the people to adopt idolatrous practices is immediately known to be a fraud.

The above passage focuses on a theological issue related to the false prophet. How does Hashem allow this provocateur to perform wonders or predict the future? In other words, why does Hashem not protect His true believers from such confusing tests? The passage responds that Hashem is testing our commitment to His service. He allows the provocateur to achieve recognition and even acclaim as a prophet in order to test whether we can be fooled by this impostor.

The language used hardly implies any direct act of G-d being associated with the works of this "charlatan" (Rabbi Fox's word, not mine). Ha'Shem is said to allow the provocateur to perform wonders or predict the future, not to cause those achievements. 

In fact, this is not the only place where your own source has failed to establish your claim about G-d's direct activities.

Consider this article, which you linked to in an earlier post (the post immediately prior to my previous post on this thread, IIRC).

Just as we are commanded to render a [legal] judgment based on the testimony of two witnesses, even though we do not know if they are testifying truthfully or falsely, similarly, it is a mitzvah to listen to this prophet even though we do not know whether the wonder is true or performed by magic or sorcery.

Therefore, if a prophet arises and attempts to dispute Moses' prophecy by performing great signs and wonders, we should not listen to him. We know with certainty that he performed those signs through magic or sorcery. [This conclusion is reached] because the prophecy of Moses, our teacher, is not dependent on wonders, so that we could compare these wonders, one against the other. Rather we saw and heard with our own eyes and ears as he did.

Emphasis added. 

If the article you linked to in response to me was insufficient to prove your point, the article you linked to in response to Johannes actively undermined it. The distinction here is between the true miracle worked by G-d and the act of magic or sorcery - precisely the distinction I've been arguing for. 

Dave wrote:

You say that the "signs and wonders" mentioned in vs 1&2 quantify over all possible signs and wonders - including those that can only be worked by directly by the Finger of G-d. When we look at the actual history of Israel, we find that it doesn't even cover summoning insects.  

Show me any restrictions involving “Not to include signs and wonders from G-d’s finger but only His elbow hitting something else and kinda indirectly maybe secondarily causing it to happen in such a fashion as to leave G-d’s hands clean from all moral responsibility.” I must have skipped that qualification.

As I said before, the only argument you offer for the inclusion of G-d's direct actions is the fact that the verse doesn't explicitly exclude them. However, it's obvious that "not being directly contradicted by the text" is about as weak of an argument for a certain interpretation as one could ask for.

Which insect-summoning are you alluding to?

Exodus 8:12-15

Adonai said to Moshe, “Say to Aharon: ‘Reach out with your staff and strike the dust on the ground; it will become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.’” They did it — Aharon reached out his hand with his staff and struck the dust on the ground, and there were lice on people and animals; all the dust on the ground became lice throughout the whole land of Egypt. The magicians tried with their secret arts to produce lice, but they couldn’t. There were lice on people and animals. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of G-d.” But Pharaoh was made hardhearted, so that he didn’t listen to them, just as Adonai had said would happen.

I have repeatedly referred to this portion of scripture. Whenever I made reference to "The Finger of G-d" pointing away from the truth, I was alluding to this passage. 

Pharaoh's magicians are the only figures in the Tanakh who both a) could be considered as "false," or "against G-d," and b) actually did something vaguely miraculous. But as soon as they try to summon lice (or gnats, as in other translations)? They can't pull it off, and straight-up tell Pharaoh that he doesn't know What he's dealing with.

Dave wrote:

Can I not say the same thing of my own interpretation? And can I not also say that my interpretation manages to explain the fact that no false prophet mentioned in the Tanakh ever did anything interesting?

What “interpretation”? You don’t have an interpretation. You have an eisegesis, some a priori standard the passage must, of absolute necessity, meet.

Do you consider figurative interpretations of passages that speak of the Hand of G-d to be "eisegesis"? After all, G-d's incorporeality is something you have to assert in spite of them, not because of them; you have to explain them away.

My situation with respect to the passage at hand is rather less problematic. There's no obvious reason for the signs of which it speaks to be the result of G-d's direct actions, so I needn't explain it away. There's not even a prima facie contradiction here. 

Now, that by itself is no argument for an interpretation, as I have argued. Hence my emphasis on the way G-d's direct actions are portrayed throughout the rest of scripture and various abstract principles regarding the nature of lies.

Where are you deriving the “interesting” requirement? Where are you deriving the insistence that it’s only true if the TaNaKH is teeming with “interesting” false prophets?

I'm not insisting that the Tanakh be "teeming" with them. I'm simply expecting the thing the passage warns against to have actually happened. After all, individuals and cities going after idolatry are described in the Tanakh, though rarely or never (in the case of cities) do we find a description of the law actually being obeyed. 

The passage warns about cities going off after idols. And occasionally, cities did - Bethel and Dan under the reign of Jeroboam spring to mind.

The passage warns about individuals succumbing to idolatry. And individuals did - such as Micah the Ephraimite. 

The passage warns about false prophets advocating idolatry. And there were - certainly the prophets of Baal fit the bill. Idolatrous wonder-workers are harder to find, but at least there's some precedent for that sort of thing in Pharaoh's magicians.

What there is no sign of, throughout the entire Tanakh, is G-d Himself directly causing a sign that leads people into idolatry. If your interpretation is correct, it's the only thing the passage warned against that never actually happened.

That, I submit to you, is a reason for suspicion.

You’re pulling this out of thin air and pretending it’s essential.

Expecting G-d's warnings to be relevant to things that would actually happen to Israel is "pulling something out of thin air"?

Did Abraham do a survey of Israel’s history to see if G-d meant what He said?

No, because G-d had yet to provide anybody with such a thing. But, in any case, Abraham had rather more direct access to the evidence than we do.

Dave wrote:

 Give me one example - just one - of G-d Himself giving miraculous attestation to a false message. That's what it would take for your interpretation of Deuteronomy 13 to be viable.

I deny the a priori Requirement of Viability, but what about this:

And now, behold the L-rd has placed a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, whereas the L-rd spoke evil concerning you. (1 Kings 22:23) G-d put a “lying spirit” into the mouths of prophets. Does prophecy occur via the natural process of photosynthesis? No. Then how did it happen? G-d did it!

I note that you omit the prior portions of the passage.

I Kings 22, beginning in verse 15:

When he reached the king, the king asked him, “Mikhay’hu, should we go up and attack Ramot-Gil‘ad; or should we hold off?”

He answered, “Go up, you will succeed, Adonai will hand it over to the king.”

The king said to him, “How many times do I have to warn you to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of Adonai?”

Then he said, “I saw all Isra’el scattered over the hills like sheep without a shepherd; and Adonai said, ‘These men have no leader; let everyone go home in peace.’”

The king of Isra’el said to Y’hoshafat, “Didn’t I tell you that he wouldn’t prophesy good things about me, but bad?”

Mikhay’hu continued: “Therefore hear the word of Adonai. I saw Adonai sitting on his throne with the whole army of heaven standing by him on his right and on his left. Adonai asked, ‘Who will entice Ach’av to go up to his death at Ramot-Gil‘ad?’

"One of them said, ‘Do it this way,’ and another, ‘Do it that way.’

Then a spirit stepped up, stood in front of Adonai and said, ‘I will entice him.'

"Adonai asked, ‘How?’

"And he answered, ‘I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’

"Adonai said, ‘You will succeed in enticing him. Go, and do it.’ So now Adonai has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours; meanwhile, Adonai has ordained disaster for you.”

From the narrative, it looks as if G-d just put a rubber stamp on the deceiving spirit's idea, and let said spirit go ahead with it. And in any case, one can hardly call this direct. 

I know, I know, it’s that blasted “secondary causation”! G-d has to stop bumping into stuff and secondarily “causing” it to happen.

You do know the difference between primary and secondary causation, right? The idea is that secondary causes get their causality from G-d, not that G-d "bumps into them" "accidentally."

Dave wrote:

“In what sense is the Christian doctrine of Satan "dualistic?"”

Please. Phone call from Zoroaster.

And where does it say that Satan is G-d's equal and opposite? I'll accept an answer for either Paul or Zoroaster. The latter, especially, has a bad rap w.r.t. this issue.

If it's the "god of this world" thing that's causing problems, remember that, in Exodus, G-d said that He would make Moses "be as G-d to Pharaoh," and Psalm 82 describes rulers of the nations as "gods" who know nothing and will ultimately fall to G-d's judgement. This isn't an unprecedented way of speaking, and to be blunt, describing Satan as "god-like" seems far more appropriate than giving the same apellation to even the greatest of merely human prophets.

Dave wrote:

Your eagerness to cut off my potential future lines of advance speaks volumes about your confidence that you can win the battle at hand.

Win the battle at hand? Who are you?

An actor who has been in a few too many farces.

Dave wrote:

There's no explicit statement in the Torah that such signs of contrition are an adequate replacement for the 244, and that's the standard you've set for establishing this sort of thing.

To clarify, was the Torah annulled with the destruction of the First Temple?

That's what I've been trying to get you to tell me!.

Suppose you’re thrown into the Gulag. You’re going to miss Sunday mass for the foreseeable future. Therefore … the New Testament has been canceled?

Sunday mass doesn't fulfill the same role for Christians that the Temple did for Second Temple era Jews. To pull off an AD 70 style upset on us would require marching up to G-d's throne room and bodily chucking Christ out of there. As long as He is there, we have our temple services being carried out. See the book of Hebrews for details.

Dave wrote:

That G-d stands alone does not entail that He is an undifferentiated lump. Why should we attribute the unity characteristic of a photon - which doesn't even have enough reality for a proper synchronic identity - to He Who is Higher than the seraphim?

That’s right, I’ve been defending the “undifferentiated lump” position. I’ve clearly maintained that G-d is just like a photon. One day me think pretty. Are you even reading my posts? G-d isn’t “like” anything at all.

True enough, in one sense. In another sense, He is like everything, especially insofar as He is the exemplar cause of every act - including transient activities. A transient activity necessarily involves terms, so identifying the "Pure Act" with something analogous to a transient action is ipso facto asserting that the Divine Essence is identical to some kind of relation or relations. This entails that there's something about the Divine Essence that allows it to stand in relation to itself, in some sense, as giver to given - in other words, that there are relations of emanation or procession within G-d.

All of this follows from the existence of Pure Act, and the fact that Pure Act serves as the exemplar cause for every act of any composite. Both propositions can be proven by Reason, and both of them are essential to Classical Theism. 

Sorry for the fideism again, but G-d describes Himself as One.

"HaShem eloheinu HaShem echad."

The first thing to note is that "eloheinu" doesn't mean "our G-d," but rather "our gods." This "Plural of Majesty" is pretty much unique to Jewish religion, as far as I'm aware. It's as if the writers of scripture wished to convey that HaShem alone could do more than anyone else's entire pantheon!

In any case, there are four ways to interpret this verse. Each phrase - "HaShem eloheinu" and "HaShem echad" - can be interpreted either as a sentence unto itself, or else as a mere phrase.

If both are mere phrases, we get, "HaShem our gods is one HaShem" - there are no other HaShems running around out there.

If the former is a mere phrase, while the latter is a full sentence, we get, "HaShem our gods, HaShem is one" - an assertion of the unity of HaShem, with the phrase "HaShem our gods" serving as a means of clarifying the subject of the sentence. 

If both are full sentences, we have, "HaShem is our gods, HaShem is one" - which isn't any different in meaning from the last option.

Finally, the first could be a full sentence, while the latter is just a phrase, which gives, "HaShem is our gods, HaShem alone" - which asserts that HaShem exhausts their entire pantheon. Where every other nation needs a gaggle of gods and goddesses, Israel has everything it needs - and then some - in the single entity known as HaShem.

So, there are three ways of viewing the Shema: first, as a statement that there are no other HaShems; second, as asserting the unity of HaShem; and third, as a statement that HaShem alone is uniquely worthy of worship. Does the doctrine of the Trinity fail any of these tests?

Well, to me, it's obvious that Trinitarian thought emphasizes, rather than diminishing, the uniqueness of G-d. Moreover, the idea is about the inner life of G-d, not about putting up anything else beside Him. So that last one's out. Nor is there any possibility that there could be more than one Trinity, so the first one's out too.

That leaves "HaShem is one" as the only interpretation of the Shema with any bite against Trinitarianism. But even there we run into a problem. To call a thing "one" is just to say that it is undivided in itself and divided off from every other. But recall my lengthy spiel about triadic differentiation a while ago, and how the terms of the triad substance-apprehension-appetite become more clear and distinct, as well as less divisible, as we ascend the "chain of being." Well guess what? Ascending the chain of being is ipso facto ascending the chain of unity! Humans are more perfectly undivided in themselves than brutes are, and angels more so than humans. Likewise, humans are more distinct from one another than lower animals are, and angels more so than humans.

The more "one" a substance is, the more clearly demarcated are the elements of the substance-apprehension-appetite triad!  As such, "infinite unity" as such may well be the ultimate expression of that triad, precisely as unity!

Such a view is paradoxical, but it can hardly be ruled out a priori.

Dave wrote:

 How many faithful Jews are you prepared to denounce as idolaters?

Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. That's unsanitary

You're the one who's been arguing that the Trinity (and, by extension, Jewish Wisdom literature, Philo of Alexandria, and Kabbala) is idolatrous.

Where have I “denounced” anyone? This is a debate within Orthodoxy. I spoke the truth with no accusations whatsoever. (Gentiles aren’t supposed to study Kabbalah.) My point was that Oneness is very important and I cited evidence.

As long as the debates about Wisdom theology, Philo's Logos, and the Kabbalah's Sefirot are considered "orthodox," the Trinity is as well. If any one of those views has adequate respect for the Oneness of G-d, then so does Christianity.

Anyone who defends a book oozing with this evil filth can shut his damn mouth about denouncing “faithful Jews.”
 

Er... you are aware that I literally worship a Jew, right?

It's okay if you're not. Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only one worshiping Him who is aware of that fact.



On a (slightly) less flippant note.

Paul? He was a Jew.

Peter? A Jew.

John? Jew.

James? Jew.

Matthew? Jew.

Mark? Probably a Jew.

Jude? Also probably a Jew.

Author of the book of Hebrews? Based on content, quite likely Jewish.

Luke is the only non-Jewish author in the entire NT!

And he mostly wrote about Jews!

(okay, so I lied about it being less flippant) 

If anyone, Jew or Gentile, manages to come up with an anti-Semitic interpretation of the NT, it's a safe assumption that they took a wrong turn somewhere along the line. Whatever you find in it that wasn't written by a Jew was written about a Jew. 

Last edited by Dave (8/14/2018 2:29 am)

 

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