Why did God send Jesus at the time and place he did?

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by esmith

Just a thought, I'm sure someone out there has a logical answer.

Place = Jesus came for the Jews so he died at the center of Jewish life - Jerusalem

Time = Roman roads conneceted the Empire, and there was pax Romana. This meant that the Gospel could travel freely to the entire known world without the hindrence of wars.

[1AOA1]

Originally Posted by esmith

If you believe Jesus was who you say he was, why did God send him at the time and place He did? It seems to me that the Jewish population in the area didn't seem to be having any major problems. That is unless you count the Roman occupation, which Jesus didn't seem to mind. If it was to redeem the Jewish population for their sins, that is if they accepted him as their savior, which they didn't, he missed the mark there. If it was to spread the new Christian religion among the pagans then wouldn't God have sent him to the pagans instead of the Israelites (who didn't appear to want him).

Just a thought, I'm sure someone out there has a logical answer.

He came for the Jews?

[lockyfan]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

Place = Jesus came for the Jews so he died at the center of Jewish life - Jerusalem

Time = Roman roads conneceted the Empire, and there was pax Romana. This meant that the Gospel could travel freely to the entire known world without the hindrence of wars.

He came for all Genesis 3:15 Satan is the serpent Jesus is the seed of the woman Jesus will destroy satan. Thus evil will leave because the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one (satan).

Jesus died so that we can have everlasting life on a paradise earth (ps 37:10-11, 29)

Jesus was to be the one trying to get the Jews or as many as possible as that was his commission, but he was also to start the public ministry and leave it to the diciples and Apostles. the were to continue on to the rest of the world and they did at that time (Matt 24:14) (Matt 28:19-20) Now there is more faithful Christians following this work that was started way back then!

[esmith]

Originally Posted by lockyfan

He came for all Genesis 3:15 Satan is the serpent Jesus is the seed of the woman Jesus will destroy satan. Thus evil will leave because the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one (satan).!

Don't know where you get this, but suspect it is the dogma of the Christian religion. The book of Genesis is 1 book of what is commonly called the 5 Books Of Moses or the Jewish Toraha. The snake is "the shrewdest of all wild beast" and not identified with evil. The figure "Satan" is a very late developing idea in Jewish theology and continued into Christianity. So I do not see how you can take something that is one thing and turn it into something that it isn't.

Originally Posted by lockyfan

Jesus died so that we can have everlasting life on a paradise earth (ps 37:10-11, 29)

Again you are taking a verse and attempting to make it support your beliefs. This Psalm is an acrostic psalm whose themes, structure, and vocabulary are characteristic of Proverbs. This Psalm should be considered a wisdom Psalm. It expresses the certainty that ultimately the righteous will succeed and will inherit the land, and the wicked will fail. Your Jesus has nothing to do with the authors writings.

Originally Posted by lockyfan

Jesus was to be the one trying to get the Jews or as many as possible as that was his commission, but he was also to start the public ministry and leave it to the diciples and Apostles. the were to continue on to the rest of the world and they did at that time (Matt 24:14) (Matt 28:19-20) Now there is more faithful Christians following this work that was started way back then

Again you are making superpositions to further the beliefs of Paul and his followers.

[lockyfan]

Originally Posted by esmith

Don't know where you get this, but suspect it is the dogma of the Christian religion. The book of Genesis is 1 book of what is commonly called the 5 Books Of Moses or the Jewish Toraha. The snake is "the shrewdest of all wild beast" and not identified with evil. The figure "Satan" is a very late developing idea in Jewish theology and continued into Christianity. So I do not see how you can take something that is one thing and turn it into something that it isn't.

Yes but if you look at 2 timothy 3:16-17. All scripture is inspired of God. So Moses may have been the person who wrote it down, but just like a business man may get his secretary to take down his letters and write them, God used men to put it into their own words and ways but then kept it around for us to read.

Also I use more then one scripture to back this pearl of truth or "dogma" as you put it.

Gen 3:15
And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.


Gen 3:1
Now the serpent proved to be the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made. So it began to say to the woman: “Is it really so that God said YOU must not eat from every tree of the garden?”

What made the serpent speak?

Rev 12:9
So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.

Originally Posted by esmith

Again you are taking a verse and attempting to make it support your beliefs. This Psalm is an acrostic psalm whose themes, structure, and vocabulary are characteristic of Proverbs. This Psalm should be considered a wisdom Psalm. It expresses the certainty that ultimately the righteous will succeed and will inherit the land, and the wicked will fail. Your Jesus has nothing to do with the authors writings.

So you are saying that it is not wise to have a hope about the future that is backed up in other parts of the bible as well?

Originally Posted by esmith

Again you are making superpositions to further the beliefs of Paul and his followers.

No actually Christ and his followers. Paul was one of those.

Do not lump all "christian" congregations into the one belief of some certain churches. We are not all of that mold. Some of us go by Gods word the Bible, not Mans.

[Pegg]

Originally Posted by esmith

If you believe Jesus was who you say he was, why did God send him at the time and place He did? It seems to me that the Jewish population in the area didn't seem to be having any major problems. That is unless you count the Roman occupation, which Jesus didn't seem to mind. If it was to redeem the Jewish population for their sins, that is if they accepted him as their savior, which they didn't, he missed the mark there. If it was to spread the new Christian religion among the pagans then wouldn't God have sent him to the pagans instead of the Israelites (who didn't appear to want him).

Just a thought, I'm sure someone out there has a logical answer.

the timing of the Messiahs arrival had been pre determined many centuries earlier.

The prophet Daniel was given the word of when the Messiah would arrive. At the time of Daniels prophecy, Jerusalem was destroyed and many from the nation were in captivity in Babylon but others had been dispersed to neighboring nations.

“O Daniel, now I have come forth to make you have insight with understanding. 23 At the start of your entreaties a word went forth, and I myself have come to make report, because you are someone very desirable. So give consideration to the matter, and have understanding in the thing seen.

24 “There are seventy weeks that have been determined upon your people and upon your holy city, in order to terminate the transgression, and to finish off sin, and to make atonement for error, and to bring in righteousness for times indefinite, and to imprint a seal upon vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. 25 And you should know and have the insight [that] from the going forth of [the] word to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem until Mes‧si′ah [the] Leader, there will be seven weeks, also sixty-two weeks. She will return and be actually rebuilt, with a public square and moat, but in the straits of the times.

26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Mes‧si′ah will be cut off, with nothing for himself.

The book of Daniel was written around 536 BCE

The going forth of the word to restore and rebuild jerusalem came in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes of Persia, in the month of Nisan in the year 455 BCE.
The 'weeks' are 'weeks of years' according to the the Tanakh which are a total 483 years (im not explaining how the number is worked out here but PM me if you'd like the details)

from the year 455 BCE less 483 years = 29CE. This was the year Jesus was baptized and began his ministry.

[esmith]

Originally Posted by lockyfan

Yes but if you look at 2 timothy 3:16-17. All scripture is inspired of God. So Moses may have been the person who wrote it down, but just like a business man may get his secretary to take down his letters and write them, God used men to put it into their own words and ways but then kept it around for us to read.

First let's keep reference to the NT out of this discussion. I realize that Christian's use the Hebrew Bible to support the writings in the New Testament but we are discussing the Hebrew Bible and your reference to the New Testament to prove a point in the Hebrew Bible is invalid. As far as I am concerned, along with the majority of religious scholars, the Bible was written by many authors. But I digress, we are discussing Genesis. Moses was not the author of the Toraha (5 Books of Moses). How could he foresee his own death and funeral? All literature is driven by conflicts, which creates drama. This literature was not written for modern man, it was written for people of the ancient near east when it was a oral-aural presentation The script writer or writers of this book used many literary devices to focus the audience's attention to what the author desired to show. For example read the binding account of Abraham (Genesis 22). We as the audience know this is a test of Abraham, but Abraham doesn't. The author builds the story up very slowly until the climax. They didn't have movies back then, and good stories kept people entertained while they explained the religion of Israel. So stop trying to make this literary work apply to modern man or to the authentication of the New Testament.

[astarath]

I would disagree that NT can not be used in discussion of OT as the prophecies fulfilled in the NT give clarification to the OT.

[esmith]

Originally Posted by lockyfan

Gen 3:15
And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.

I am fairly certain that Christians attempt to use this verse to prove that Jesus was the messiah. However, would you explain what YOU read into this verse.

Originally Posted by lockyfan

Gen 3:1
Now the serpent proved to be the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made. So it began to say to the woman: “Is it really so that God said YOU must not eat from every tree of the garden?”

What made the serpent speak?

The first 11 Chapters of Genesis is considered to be based on myths and or legends by most biblical scholars. To get the mythical characters out of the mythical Garden of Eden we must have a reason to get them out of "paradise". They are not going to leave on their own, life is too easy. Therefore the author shows that man is incapable of obeying God's simplest commands. Snakes crawl on the ground, hard to see and have poisonous venom; otherwise "evil". Why not have the snake be the "adversary" in this little story. Man despises them anyway.

Originally Posted by lockyfan

Rev 12:9
So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.

Again you are using the New Testament to attempt to explain something in the Hebrew Bible. And again I emphasis that Satan was unknown in early Jewish theology.

Originally Posted by lockyfan

So you are saying that it is not wise to have a hope about the future that is backed up in other parts of the bible as well?

No. What I said was that by using, again, the Hebrew Bible to justify Christians belief in Jesus is invalid. Jesus' teachings, as presented in the New Testament, is not in most cases against the teachings in the Hebrew Bible.

Originally Posted by lockyfan

No actually Christ and his followers. Paul was one of those.

Do not lump all "christian" congregations into the one belief of some certain churches. We are not all of that mold. Some of us go by Gods word the Bible, not Mans.

No what I implied was that Paul turned the religion of Jesus into the religion about Jesus.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by fallingblood

I think you may be down playing the problems. During the Roman occupation, we see quite a few revolts during that time. Right around the time that Jesus was born, there was a major revolt. Not too long after his death, we then see a massive revolt that changed everything in the area.

That's not mentioning the turmoil caused by Pilate.

That points me to my leading explanation: it was a turbulent time with plenty of people were running around claiming to be messiahs, prophets or the like. New religious movements were emerging and proclaiming that they had the truth.

When someone simply follows the prevailing fashion, do we need to look for any deeper explanation? Someone who grew up surrounded by stories of "messiahs" proclaimed himself as a messiah as well. Why not just figure that he was following the established trend? It seems a lot less problematic to me than assuming that out of many people doing similar things in a particular area, one of them (and only one of them, apparently) was inspired by God.

Originally Posted by astarath

Judging by the effect of bringing Christ when He did there seemed to be some wisdom to it. The would not be an internet if it weren't for the church.

How so?

At the risk of running afoul of Godwin's Law, keep in mind a few things:

- There would not have been an internet if it weren't for the Cold War. The distributed architecture that allowed the internet to expand the way it did was originally designed to be resistant to nuclear attack.

- There would not have been a Cold War if it weren't for World War II.

- There would not have been a World War II if it weren't for Hitler.

So... do we really have God to thank for all this? You can't credit God for the internet without crediting him for Hitler. Do you want to do that?