How many gentiles did Jesus convert to his religion?

[Deeje]

Sorry this is so long...there was a lot to respond to. I'll break it up...

I would like to point out that the reason Jesus didn't wear distinctive dress was that he was not a Kohen (priest descended from Aaron).

I understand that he was considered an uneducated man by the standards of the day, neither he, nor his apostles had any formal religious training in the Rabbinical Schools. (Acts 4:13; Matthew 11:25; 1 Corinthians 1:26-27)

Do you believe that Psalm 110 is a prophesy of King David? Was it a Messianic prophesy?
Who is David's Lord here?

לְדָוִ֗ד מִ֫זְמ֥וֹר נְאֻ֤ם יְהוָ֨ה ׀ לַֽאדֹנִ֗י שֵׁ֥ב לִֽימִינִ֑י עַד־אָשִׁ֥ית אֹ֝יְבֶ֗יךָ הֲדֹ֣ם לְרַגְלֶֽיךָ:

Of David. A psalm.
The LORD [יְהוָ֨ה] said to my lord, “Sit at My right hand while I make your enemies your footstool.”

דנִשְׁבַּ֚ע יְהֹוָ֨ה | וְלֹ֥֬א יִנָּחֵ֗ם אַתָּה־כֹהֵ֥ן לְעוֹלָ֑ם עַל־דִּ֜בְרָתִ֗י מַלְכִּי־צֶֽדֶק:

"The LORD [יְהֹוָ֨ה] has sworn and will not change His mind,
“You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.” (Psalm 110:1;4)

If the Messiah was going to be a "priest" in like manner to Melchizedek, who was also a "King", then he was to be both....not just by birth into a certain tribe, or by the decree of men, but by the order of his God. He went to the common people (the "lost sheep of the house of Israel") as a preacher and teacher, because that is who God sent him to gather and to shepherd.

May I ask....if Jews are still expecting their Messiah, how will they know him? What are you expecting him to do?

Your belief in a giant apostacy is esoteric to followers of Jesus, as is your belief in soul sleep.

Not really. The great apostasy is entirely scriptural....foretold by Jesus and his apostles.

With his parable of the "wheat and the weeds" Jesus made it clear that the weeds of counterfeit Christianity, sown by the devil, were worthless refuse destined to be destroyed.

Paul also said at 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4...

"However, brothers, concerning the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you 2 not to be quickly shaken from your reason nor to be alarmed either by an inspired statement or by a spoken message or by a letter appearing to be from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here.

3 Let no one lead you astray in any way, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction. 4 He stands in opposition and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits down in the temple of God, publicly showing himself to be a god."

It was foretold and it happened just as they said. The "man of Lawlessness" "exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits down in the temple of God, publicly showing himself to be a god." Who does that describe?


"Soul sleep" is also an OT belief. David's words again...

גאַל־תִּבְטְח֥וּ בִנְדִיבִ֑ים בְּבֶן־אָדָ֓ם | שֶׁ֚אֵ֖ין ל֥וֹ תְשׁוּעָֽה:

Do not trust in princes, in the son of men, who has no salvation.

דתֵּצֵ֣א ר֖וּחוֹ יָשֻׁ֣ב לְאַדְמָת֑וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַ֜ה֗וּא אָֽבְד֥וּ עֶשְׁתֹּנֹתָֽיו

His spirit [breath] leaves, he returns to his soil; on that day, his thoughts are lost. " (Psalm 146:4)

If the soul lives....how can it not think?

הכִּ֧י הַֽחַיִּ֛ים יֽוֹדְעִ֖ים שֶׁיָּמֻ֑תוּ וְהַמֵּתִ֞ים אֵינָ֧ם יֽוֹדְעִ֣ים מְא֗וּמָה וְאֵֽין־ע֤וֹד לָהֶם֙ שָׂכָ֔ר כִּ֥י נִשְׁכַּ֖ח זִכְרָֽם:

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for their remembrance is forgotten.

וגַּ֣ם אַֽהֲבָתָ֧ם גַּם־שִׂנְאָתָ֛ם גַּם־קִנְאָתָ֖ם כְּבָ֣ר אָבָ֑דָה וְחֵ֨לֶק אֵֽין־לָהֶ֥ם עוֹד֙ לְעוֹלָ֔ם בְּכֹ֥ל אֲשֶֽׁר־נַֽעֲשָׂ֖ה תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ:

Also their love, as well as their hate, as well as their provocation has already been lost, and they have no more share forever in all that is done under the sun.

כֹּ֠ל אֲשֶׁ֨ר תִּמְצָ֧א יָֽדְךָ֛ לַֽעֲשׂ֥וֹת בְּכֹֽחֲךָ֖ עֲשֵׂ֑ה כִּי֩ אֵ֨ין מַֽעֲשֶׂ֤ה וְחֶשְׁבּוֹן֙ וְדַ֣עַת וְחָכְמָ֔ה בִּשְׁא֕וֹל אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַתָּ֖ה הֹלֵ֥ךְ שָֽׁמָּה:

Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do; for there is neither deed nor reckoning, neither knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going." (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6; 10)

If the dead know nothing...if they have no emotions, no activity, no knowledge or wisdom.....where are they.....if not 'asleep'?

Ezekiel tells us that the "soul" "dies".

דהֵ֚ן כָּל־הַנְּפָשׁוֹת֙ לִ֣י הֵ֔נָּה כְּנֶ֧פֶשׁ הָאָ֛ב וּכְנֶ֥פֶשׁ הַבֵּ֖ן לִי־הֵ֑נָּה הַנֶּ֥פֶשׁ הַֽחֹטֵ֖את הִ֥יא תָמֽוּת:

"Behold, all souls are Mine. Like the soul of the father, like the soul of the son they are Mine; the soul that sins, it shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4) No part of man survives death. Resurrection is bringing the dead back to life.

 

[Deeje]

And don't put it on ancient Jews -- it is obvious you know little about us, as you are generalizing from one single verse (always a bad idea).

That's not just one verse.

What would be more true would be to say that Jews were not concerned with the afterlife back in the days of the Torah. There is no mention in the Torah of heaven or the world to come or any resurrection. Such ideas came later in history with the prophets. This doesn't automatically mean that they believed in soul sleep.

We can deduce from the Torah that there was no belief in an afterlife...period. AFAIK, the only way for a Jew to live again was by resurrection.

Job said...."
But a man will die and he is weakened; man perishes and where is he?

11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river is drained dry.

12 So does a man lie down and not rise; until the heavens are no more, they will not awaken, nor will they be aroused from their sleep.

13 Would that You hide me in the grave, that You would keep me secret, until Your wrath has subsided; give me a set time and remember me.

14 If a man dies, will he live? All the days of my lifespan, I will hope, until the coming of my passing.

15 Call and I will answer You; You desire the work of Your hands." (Job 14:10-15)

Job believed in sleeping in the grave and that he would be called out of his sleep.

Jesus reference to Jerusalem killing the prophets is hyperbole. Jezebel killed the prophets in her court. That is the only instance.

2 Chronicles 24:20-21...
"And the spirit of God enveloped Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people and said to them, "So said God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord? You will not succeed because you have forsaken the Lord, and He has forsaken you."
21And they conspired against him and stoned him by the king's command, in the forecourt of the House of the Lord."

Jeremiah 38:6-13 is also how they tried to kill Jeremiah.

As far as keeping our covenant, back in those days, some times we did, and some times we didn't. There were good kings and bad kings. It was pretty cyclical. Today it tends to be both, where some individuals keep the covenant and others don't. I'm sure that as someone who follows God yourself, you've noticed that he disciplines us when we fall away so that we return, that he "chastens those he loves."

Does God's patience have limits? (1 Kings 9:6-11)

You'll also not that the idolatry, with which the LORD was most irritated, completely stopped during the Babylonian captivity and has never resumed. That would include not worshiping the man Jesus.

None of Jesus' first century disciples worshipped Jesus....that would have been a violation of the first Commandment. There is nowhere in the Christian scriptures that says Jesus is God. Christendom adopted that view along with many other erroneous things that became doctrines....all part of the apostasy.

What???? God gave Israel the choice whether to have a King or not. It was because Israel chose a King that a Messiah is possible, since the Messiah is the King who reigns during the messianic era.

Please read 1 Samuel chapter 8.

If Messiah was to come from the tribe of Judah, how could he become either a king or a priest?

 

[Deeje]

Wow, if I believed such disinformation and distortions, I'd have a bad feeling about Judaism too. Fortunately I the accurate facts.

1. The MAIN promise is God giving the Land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac, and its UNCONDITIONAL. There are other conditional promises, but they pale in comparison. Eternal life was never a promise or part of the covenant.

It isn't about a piece of land....it had a much bigger implications than that. This whole earth belongs to God, and it was the whole earth that the first humans were told to "fill"....so a small piece of dirt in the middle east is hardly worth all the bloodshed and animosity. That whole scenario of Israel inheriting the Promised Land was pictorial of what was to take place on a global scale. This earth is the real Promised Land and all the nations were going to benefit from God covenant with Abraham. It is no longer just a Jewish arrangement.

Eternal life was offered first to Adam and his wife in Eden. There was no natural cause of death in the beginning. The first prophesy in Genesis 3:15 was a sacred mystery that unfolded gradually over time, revealing who the players were what the two inflicted wounds would mean. Satan was going to inflict a lesser "heal" wound on the Messiah and he was to inflict a fatal "head" wound on the devil.

2. It is not true that Israel "rarely" followed God. You need to reread Kings and Chronicles. We went back and forth.

I have read it all...Israel was a pathetic "stiff necked people" by God's own admission (Exodus 32:9; Deuteronomy 9:5-14)....but he made a promise and he kept his end of the deal....Israel never did.

3. You say Judaism was a distortion by the time of John the Baptist. Which Judaism was that? The Judaism of the Sadducees? The Essenes? Bet Hillel? Bet Shammai? I don't think you are familiar enough with second temple Judaism to comment. I'm just curious. What specific part of Judaism at Sinai was not present during Jesus' day?

The Jewish religious system established around the Law given to Moses at Mt Sinai was not in evidence by the time of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. Sectarianism had broken it up into rival factions and man made traditions were followed more closely than the law. Most Christians would have heard of Gamaliel who was a well-known Pharisee whose wise words calmed an angry crowd.

To my knowledge, he was the grandson of Hillel the Elder, who had founded one of the two great schools of thought within Pharisaic Judaism. Hillel’s approach was considered more tolerant than that of his rival, Shammai. After the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple in 70 C.E., Bet Hillel (the House of Hillel) was preferred to Bet Shammai (the House of Shammai). The House of Hillel became the official expression of Judaism, since all other sects disappeared with the temple’s destruction. The decisions of Bet Hillel are often the basis for Jewish law in the Mishnah, which became the foundation of the Talmud, and Gamaliel’s influence apparently was a major factor in its dominance.

Gamaliel was so esteemed that he was the first to be called rabban, a title higher than that of rabbi. In fact, Gamaliel became such a highly respected individual that the Mishnah says of him: “When Rabban Gamaliel the elder died the glory of the Torah ceased, and purity and saintliness [lit. “separation”] perished.”—Sotah 9:15.
The Essenes were so insignificant that they didn't even rate a scriptural mention.

4. Jesus used a lot of hyperbole. If you look at someone with lust, are you suppose to literally blind yourself? So Jesus didn't literally think the Pharisees were sons of the Devil -- he was expressing his anger.

Why was he angry? Why was John the Baptist angry? Why did God get angry? Am I missing something here? Or are you missing something here?

One of the things the Gospels lack is the context that there were actually to very different groups of Pharisees. The School of Shammai was very, very strict and made life hard for Jews -- these ran the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus and Jesus argued with them every chance he got. T.he School of Hillel interpreted the Law in ways that were easy on the people. I agree with Rabbi Falk that Jesus himself was a Pharisee of the School of Hillel.

Jesus never identified as a Pharisee. In fact he did not identify with any sect but condemned them all.

Again an esoteric interpretation.

If you say so.....its an interpretation backed up by the scriptures. Christendom's churches cannot be trusted to teach the truth.
To make the "Lord's Day" into a day of the week is rather strange....but then to transfer the idea of the Sabbath and then graft it over the Roman holy day dedicated to the sun is equally strange....not to mention an insult to the God they purport to worship.

So nice to agree on something, eh?

Better than nothing I guess.

 

[Bear Wild]

I know that the developing Christianity diversified with such groups as the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the Gnostics as well as the church in Rome. There seem to have been radically changing views in Christianity including the view of Jesus as a prophet and Jesus becoming god. It was not until Rome with its power removed all other forms of the belief trying to create a single view. I also find it interesting that the created the Catholic Church hierarchy fashioned after the Roman military/political pattern which was so effective at removing and incorporating any other groups of people and making them Roman. It is amazing the any of the Gnostic documents remained at all such as the gospel of Thomas.

 

[Craig Sedok]

Jesus is the symbol for Christianity but despite reading the new and old testament's over and over again I can not find out how many gentiles he converted to his religion. The other question is would the religion Jesus would have converted them to have been the Jewish religion or to a new religion worshiping him?

99 bottles of beer on the wall. Songs do have some zest. And a history. Old posts still have a nail or two to add.

 

[Bear Wild]

99 bottles of beer on the wall. Songs do have some zest. And a history. Old posts still have a nail or two to add.

Sorry but do not understand the 99 bottles of beer. Was this in a reference to alcohol consumption by early Christians? Adding new nail to old posts does not always make the old posts stronger.

 

[Craig Sedok]

Nothing old. Just the idea that what noone sees might be already here. You do know that a christian is what one is in belief. Nothing about a label. Blind faith is something that is difficult for me to accept. Even me. Gentile.

 

[Bear Wild]

Nothing old. Just the idea that what noone sees might be already here. You do know that a christian is what one is in belief. Nothing about a label. Blind faith is something that is difficult for me to accept. Even me. Gentile.

I know what a Christian is considering I grew up in the faith and am familiar with the diversity of Christian beliefs including faith but blind faith is blind.

 

[Craig Sedok]

I know what a Christian is considering I grew up in the faith and am familiar with the diversity of Christian beliefs including faith but blind faith is blind.

A mule wears a blind so that it can pull the plow. Short legs and strong knees. Sounds like a christian. Put a sword in his hand and how far can it swing. War is always a piece of what the world is and it always comes back to that. The 99 bottles refers to the expenditure of life. The cheapness of life.

 

[Bear Wild]

A mule wears a blind so that it can pull the plow. Short legs and strong knees. Sounds like a christian. Put a sword in his hand and how far can it swing. War is always a piece of what the world is and it always comes back to that. The 99 bottles refers to the expenditure of life. The cheapness of life.

Thanks for clarifying it.

 

[metis]

It was not until Rome with its power removed all other forms of the belief trying to create a single view. I also find it interesting that the created the Catholic Church hierarchy fashioned after the Roman military/political pattern which was so effective at removing and incorporating any other groups of people and making them Roman.

Misleading.

In the gospels, it says that Jesus "taught with authority", and in Acts and also the epistles we see that same pattern of leadership and teaching by the apostles.

Also, as Paul repeatedly exclaimed, the Church consists of "one body" under apostolic leadership, thus he had to try and convince the Twelve what he proposed. At no point is there any indication that they wanted to decentralize the Church and have numerous groups operating under their own rules and their own teachings.

To put it another way, the Church was not a do-your-own-thing entity nor was it a democracy.

 

[metis]

I have read it all...Israel was a pathetic "stiff necked people" by God's own admission (Exodus 32:9; Deuteronomy 9:5-14)....but he made a promise and he kept his end of the deal....Israel never did.

That's only true if you read with only one "eye" open and then stereotype all Jews as there are many other verses whereas Jews are praised.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I understand that he was considered an uneducated man by the standards of the day, neither he, nor his apostles had any formal religious training in the Rabbinical Schools. (Acts 4:13; Matthew 11:25; 1 Corinthians 1:26-27)

Jesus was not an uneducated man. If you wish to believe the gospel accounts, he was entirely literate and eloquent, for he was called up to read from the prophets in the synagogue and to elaborate. Further, the gospels have a story that when he was twelve and went to the temple at Jerusalem he wowed the rabbis there with his understanding.

One of the missions the Pharisees had was to set up schools so that every Jewish boy could learn Torah. It was their goal that Judaism would become part of the daily life of each and every Jew, and not merely the domain of the priests and the rabbis. As a consequence, literacy increased in the land.

Do you believe that Psalm 110 is a prophesy of King David? Was it a Messianic prophesy?
Who is David's Lord here?

Psalm 110 is not a prophecy. The psalmist is singing of King David.

May I ask....if Jews are still expecting their Messiah, how will they know him? What are you expecting him to do?

Haven't I already answered this? Perhaps it was in a post to someone else.
1. Rule from the throne in Jerusalem
2. Bring all the Jews in diaspora back to the Land
3. Usher in a era of literal world peace (not inner peace, or local peace, etc.)

Not really. The great apostasy is entirely scriptural....foretold by Jesus and his apostles.

Correct me if I have misunderstood you, but I think you have presented that the apostasy began within decades after Jesus, and lasted for nearly 2000 years until your denomination came into being. That's an esoteric view. The common Christian understanding that I learned was the great apostasy happens just before the end of the world.

"Soul sleep" is also an OT belief. David's words again...

גאַל־תִּבְטְח֥וּ בִנְדִיבִ֑ים בְּבֶן־אָדָ֓ם | שֶׁ֚אֵ֖ין ל֥וֹ תְשׁוּעָֽה:

Do not trust in princes, in the son of men, who has no salvation.

דתֵּצֵ֣א ר֖וּחוֹ יָשֻׁ֣ב לְאַדְמָת֑וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַ֜ה֗וּא אָֽבְד֥וּ עֶשְׁתֹּנֹתָֽיו

His spirit [breath] leaves, he returns to his soil; on that day, his thoughts are lost. " (Psalm 146:4)

If the soul lives....how can it not think?

הכִּ֧י הַֽחַיִּ֛ים יֽוֹדְעִ֖ים שֶׁיָּמֻ֑תוּ וְהַמֵּתִ֞ים אֵינָ֧ם יֽוֹדְעִ֣ים מְא֗וּמָה וְאֵֽין־ע֤וֹד לָהֶם֙ שָׂכָ֔ר כִּ֥י נִשְׁכַּ֖ח זִכְרָֽם:

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for their remembrance is forgotten.

וגַּ֣ם אַֽהֲבָתָ֧ם גַּם־שִׂנְאָתָ֛ם גַּם־קִנְאָתָ֖ם כְּבָ֣ר אָבָ֑דָה וְחֵ֨לֶק אֵֽין־לָהֶ֥ם עוֹד֙ לְעוֹלָ֔ם בְּכֹ֥ל אֲשֶֽׁר־נַֽעֲשָׂ֖ה תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ:

Also their love, as well as their hate, as well as their provocation has already been lost, and they have no more share forever in all that is done under the sun.

כֹּ֠ל אֲשֶׁ֨ר תִּמְצָ֧א יָֽדְךָ֛ לַֽעֲשׂ֥וֹת בְּכֹֽחֲךָ֖ עֲשֵׂ֑ה כִּי֩ אֵ֨ין מַֽעֲשֶׂ֤ה וְחֶשְׁבּוֹן֙ וְדַ֣עַת וְחָכְמָ֔ה בִּשְׁא֕וֹל אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַתָּ֖ה הֹלֵ֥ךְ שָֽׁמָּה:

Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do; for there is neither deed nor reckoning, neither knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going." (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6; 10)

If the dead know nothing...if they have no emotions, no activity, no knowledge or wisdom.....where are they.....if not 'asleep'?

Ezekiel tells us that the "soul" "dies".

דהֵ֚ן כָּל־הַנְּפָשׁוֹת֙ לִ֣י הֵ֔נָּה כְּנֶ֧פֶשׁ הָאָ֛ב וּכְנֶ֥פֶשׁ הַבֵּ֖ן לִי־הֵ֑נָּה הַנֶּ֥פֶשׁ הַֽחֹטֵ֖את הִ֥יא תָמֽוּת:

"Behold, all souls are Mine. Like the soul of the father, like the soul of the son they are Mine; the soul that sins, it shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4) No part of man survives death. Resurrection is bringing the dead back to life.

None of your verses prove soul sleep. None. I've read each of them, and they don't say whaqt you are reading into them.

Again, what Jews believe about the afterlife seems to have evolved.
1. Earliest beliefs were in Sheol, an abode of the dead. Here they know nothing of the living, but it doesn't necessarially mean they are unconscious -- it could go either way.
2. The prophets taught a resurrection and world to come.
3. Gehenna is a temporary hell where souls are purified for the world to come
4. Souls which are too evil for the world to come are annihilated and it is said the righteous walk o their bones
5. Transmigration of souls is an idea that was accept by many during the diaspora as a way for those who had not kept every commandment to have a chance to do so.
6. Some Jews do not believe in an afterlife at all, and many today simply feel that the afterlife is not worth dwelling upon, that what is most important is the quality of life you live today, whether you are loving God with all with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength and loving you neighbor as yourself.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Yes, unfortunately, mainstream Christianity “came to believe”...still does....that Jesus is God.

But it didn’t start that way.!

So? Judaism did't START out believing in a resurrection. There is nothing in the Torah about any afterlife at all.

A religion can evolve and still be the same religion, just as a small seed can become a little sappling and can grow into a mighty tree.

 

[Deeje]

That's only true if you read with only one "eye" open and then stereotype all Jews as there are many other verses whereas Jews are praised.

Can you show me these verses of praise metis....in their context and the duration of their praiseworthy actions before they fell down again?

God dealt with Israel collectively, not individually. There were no doubt, many praiseworthy Jews, but as a nation God himself called them "stiff-necked". Not a good trait when their God demanded compliance with his requirements as a condition of his covenant.

Think of the times when "good" praiseworthy Jews were taken into unfavorable circumstances because of the actions of the nation's leaders, taking the people with them into disobedience and rebellion.

Think of why Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in Babylon. Taken there as young men, they showed exemplary qualities individually, but were captives in a foreign land because of God's punishment of their nation.

Also, take your mind back to Israel's 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.....Moses was stuck with them, enduring what they had to endure, but being there through no fault on his part. Anger and a loss of control over putting up with these rebellious people for so long, was the reason he did not get to enter the Promised Land.

Israel served as an example to all of what results when God gives his laws to a nation and what happens when they fail repeatedly to uphold them.
The occasions when they repented and sought God's forgiveness are recorded along with the blessings they received as a reward....but they never stayed on track. By the time Jesus presented himself for baptism, beginning his role as Messiah, he targeted the religious leaders for their hypocrisy and poor shepherding....he was not sent to "fix" Judaism because the nation and its worship were beyond repair.....Jesus was sent only to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel"...the worthy individuals Jews who recognized the Messiah and came out of that corrupt system.

This became Christianity....but it too was doomed to repeat Israel's mistakes....as Jesus and the apostles foretold. Christendom is, I believe, the result of that foretold apostasy.When the judgment comes, Jesus will say to those who failed to do the will of his Father..."I never knew you"....because he has not acknowledged them as his own since the apostasy began. The Roman Catholic Church was a fusion of Roman paganism and weakened Christianity....it never was Christian from the outset.

Time will tell....won't it? We will let Jesus be the judge.....

 

[Bear Wild]

Misleading.

In the gospels, it says that Jesus "taught with authority", and in Acts and also the epistles we see that same pattern of leadership and teaching by the apostles.

Also, as Paul repeatedly exclaimed, the Church consists of "one body" under apostolic leadership, thus he had to try and convince the Twelve what he proposed. At no point is there any indication that they wanted to decentralize the Church and have numerous groups operating under their own rules and their own teachings.

To put it another way, the Church was not a do-your-own-thing entity nor was it a democracy.

Did Jesus teach with authority to follow the Jewish faith or to create a new religion? Did Paul discuss this when Jesus was alive? Which of the early versions of the new forming Christian sects was the correct one? How would you know which was correct?

 

[Deeje]

Jesus was not an uneducated man. If you wish to believe the gospel accounts, he was entirely literate and eloquent, for he was called up to read from the prophets in the synagogue and to elaborate. Further, the gospels have a story that when he was twelve and went to the temple at Jerusalem he wowed the rabbis there with his understanding.

Jesus had no formal education. He was considered a teacher (Rabbi) but he had attended no Rabbinical School....nor had any of his 12 apostles. The only apostle with any formal education was Paul....but he was not one of the 12.

Psalm 110 is not a prophecy. The psalmist is singing of King David.

You didn't answer my question....if it isn't a prophesy, then who is David's "Lord"?

Haven't I already answered this? Perhaps it was in a post to someone else.
1. Rule from the throne in Jerusalem

Was that rule to be administered religiously, politically, or both?

2. Bring all the Jews in diaspora back to the Land

So the physical nation of Israel, will be brought back to their physical land? That is how you see his coming?

3. Usher in a era of literal world peace (not inner peace, or local peace, etc.)

How was he to accomplish this? Since Jews are a minority in most nations and not well accepted in many of them, what will it take to usher in this world peace, do you think? What will Daniel 2:44 mean then?

Correct me if I have misunderstood you, but I think you have presented that the apostasy began within decades after Jesus, and lasted for nearly 2000 years until your denomination came into being. That's an esoteric view. The common Christian understanding that I learned was the great apostasy happens just before the end of the world.

We do not subscribe to "common Christian understanding" of anything since all of Christendom is corrupted in our view. The apostasy was to come "while men were sleeping" which to us indicates that while the apostles slept in death, seeds of false Christianity were going to be sown by an enemy....since the apostles were the ones acting as a restraint in preventing the apostasy from gathering too much momentum until the last of the Christian scriptures were recorded by the Apostle John, that is why we see such a marked decline in the early centuries.

As Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5....

"However, brothers, respecting the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we request of you 2 not to be quickly shaken from your reason nor to be excited either through an inspired expression or through a verbal message or through a letter as though from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here.

3 Let no one seduce you in any manner, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction. . . . 6 And so now you know the thing that acts as a restraint, with a view to his being revealed in his own due time. 7 True, the mystery of this lawlessness is already at work; but only till he who is right now acting as a restraint gets to be out of the way."

The apostasy was "already at work" when Paul wrote that letter. The only thing acting as a 'restraint' was the presence of the apostles. As they died, one by one, so the apostasy was held back until the restraint was gone....then the "weeds" of Jesus' parable flourished. It was Daniel who foretold that a "cleansing, whitening and refining" of God's people in the "time of the end". (Daniel 12:4;9-10) Everything we have been experiencing on this earth since WW1 fulfills the prophesy Jesus gave about about his return. (Matthew 24:3-14) Whilst Israel waits in vain for a first appearance of their Messiah....Christians have already seen the evidence of his "parousia" and will be ready for his manifestation at the end of the days. Many in Christendom have no idea about any of this.

None of your verses prove soul sleep. None. I've read each of them, and they don't say what you are reading into them.

Let's just say that you don't read them through the same lens as we do.

Again, what Jews believe about the afterlife seems to have evolved.

Yes, and isn't that the problem? How does a truth "evolve" to become the exact opposite of what was once taught?

1. Earliest beliefs were in Sheol, an abode of the dead. Here they know nothing of the living, but it doesn't necessarially mean they are unconscious -- it could go either way.

Ecclesiastes 9:5; 10..."For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for their remembrance is forgotten. . . .Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do; for there is neither deed nor reckoning, neither knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going."

What does it say? "There is neither deed nor reckoning, neither knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going." What does it mean "as long as you are"? If you know nothing, have no reasoning ability or wisdom in the grave....sounds like the grave is an unconscious state to me to which we all go.

The scriptures say that there is no consciousness or planning or activity in sheol, which in the Septuagint is "hades". Doesn't Jewish belief now reflect the Hellenized concept of an immortal soul and so they had to change the meaning of the word sheol to mean "abode of the living dead"? If Adam was told that he would simply return to the dust, with no mention of any afterlife, then it stands to reason that Jews at first had no such belief. They slept in their tombs awaiting the promised resurrection. Job believed this. (Job 14:12-15)

2. The prophets taught a resurrection and world to come.

Yes, which is what Jesus taught too. The "world to come" was right here on a cleansed planet earth and the resurrection was back to this life under Messiah's Kingdom. That is what we look forward to.

3. Gehenna is a temporary hell where souls are purified for the world to come

Does the Hebrew language have an equivalent to the Greek "Gehenna" ? The Valley of Hinnom was used for child sacrifice in the days of Israel's lowest apostate period. But it was Christendom who adopted the Greek version of hades (sheol) and incorporated gehenna to mean the same thing....some kind of fiery hell of torment. However this is not what Jesus was saying when he told the Pharisees that they would not "flee from the judgment of gehenna". At God's command, the Valley of Hinnom was turned into the city's rubbish dump and that is where the bodies of those considered unworthy of a decent burial were cast for disposal. To Jews of the time it meant no resurrection because of having no memorial tomb to mark their existence and family line. To this day, Jewish cemeteries are elaborate housing for the dead.

4. Souls which are too evil for the world to come are annihilated and it is said the righteous walk o their bones.

What are "souls" to a Jew? Every reference to a soul in the Hebrew scriptures is a living, breathing creature...either man or animal. There is no such thing as a disembodied soul in the scriptures, traveling from one world to the next at death. Can you find any reference that disagrees with that?

5. Transmigration of souls is an idea that was accept by many during the diaspora as a way for those who had not kept every commandment to have a chance to do so.

Isn't it safe to say that Jews living in foreign lands tended to adopt the beliefs of those around them? Doesn't that apply to humans generally? Isn't it why God wanted to evict the Canaanites from land he intended to give them? (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)

Where do you think the idea of humans not really dying comes from? God never mentioned an afterlife of any description for Adam. He was to simply go back to where he came from....this is the message of the Bible. The living have an opportunity to learn about God and act on that knowledge, but what of those who because of the time and the geographical location into which they were born, never got to hear about Jehovah or his Messiah? It is the living who are judged, not the dead. Death is the wages of sin, so at death one has paid for all past wrongs. The majority of humans who have ever lived are still in their graves. These are promised a resurrection paid for by the ransom of Jesus. But those he condemned to "gehenna" will not be remembered ever again. These will sleep in eternal death, whilst the dead will enter either a well earned place in the Kingdom, or a period of judgment. This only happens when they are alive. (John 5:28-29) Death is not another form of life.

6. Some Jews do not believe in an afterlife at all, and many today simply feel that the afterlife is not worth dwelling upon, that what is most important is the quality of life you live today, whether you are loving God with all with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength and loving you neighbor as yourself.

How can a person not know what to accept as truth when God prescribed a very well defined system of beliefs? Either we have an immortal part of us that survives death, or we don't. I don't think God would leave us in the dark about that very important aspect of our lives...do you?

Going back to the beginning what did God tell Adam about death? Was there an afterlife mentioned at all? I can't find one. Genesis sets the stage for what the Jews were taught about death. It doesn't agree with what the serpent told Eve....because there is no life after death. The soul is mortal. (Ezekiel 18:4)

Judaism didn't START out believing in a resurrection. There is nothing in the Torah about any afterlife at all.

Exactly...because such a belief did not exist...so how could it be written in the Torah? Resurrection is not an "afterlife" it is a restoration of this life.

A religion can evolve and still be the same religion, just as a small seed can become a little sappling and can grow into a mighty tree.

Terrible analogy when applied to religious belief.....a belief has no room to "evolve" if the sapling becomes an oak instead of a cedar.

It can be clarified by adding more knowledge, but you cannot change what it is, unless you kill the original 'tree' and replace it with something completely different. Both Judaism and Christendom exchanged the truth for a lie.....the serpent's lie in Eden, which was "you surely will not die". Who lied in Eden? God or the snake?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

None of your verses prove soul sleep. None. I've read each of them, and they don't say whaqt you are reading into them.

If I may, I'd like to add this line of thought.... when God told Adam if he ate from the tree, then he would die, how would Adam know what death is? (There was no further explanation given to him; just that he would die.) If Adam didn't understand what death was, if he'd never seen anything die....that statement by God would be meaningless to him. So, how did Adam know? By seeing the animals occasionally die!

Now, what did he observe when that happened? Did he see some 'life force' leave the body? Is that what we see? No! He saw the dead animal in a life-less condition: never moving, and eventually decaying.

If you believe in consciousness after death, especially pain from torment, then you believe in a God who tells lies by omission!

Wouldn't you agree? I see it no other way.

 

[metis]

Can you show me these verses of praise metis....in their context and the duration of their praiseworthy actions before they fell down again?

Every single book in the Tanakh has words of praise as part of the discourse, and if you're not aware of that they I suggest you go back and start reading with Genesis. No book has only words of condemnation within it.

 

[metis]

Did Jesus teach with authority to follow the Jewish faith or to create a new religion?

It appears that his main thrust was to reform Judaism along certain lines.

Did Paul discuss this when Jesus was alive?

No.

Which of the early versions of the new forming Christian sects was the correct one? How would you know which was correct?

Because the mark of the Church was not which books you had but whether your leaders could be traced back directly to the twelve apostles as appointees. It's called "apostolic succession", and churches that can do this are the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, the Moravian Church, and some Scandinavian Lutheran Churches. See: Apostolic succession - Wikipedia