Oh, good grief.
Your "ignorance" beggars belief.
You have no idea or no understanding on how to read and analyse literature. What you have done is simply twist a single verse, to promote Muhammad. If anyone is being bias, is you, britedream.
You wrote:
I was following the thumb of rule, as have tumah, and everyone else who debated you and disagreed with your cherry-picking.
And you are wrong, britedream. All meanings to any passage from a passage should be found within the book, and not attempting to modify it as you have.
Verse 16 talk of assembly of Israelites at Mount Horeb, in which the older generation witnessed fire on the mountaintop. The four verses are clearly referring that contemporary Israelites will have a new prophet, a prophet that they should listen to.
As Greased Scotsman have pointed to you, a verse was never meant to be read in isolation, and the interpretation was never meant to be interpreted in isolation.
I was never skirting around, or as you put it "dance around" verse 18. I have been taking the chapter as a whole, or a passage (verses 15 to 18 as a whole), because that's how verse 18 was meant to be understood.
If you have read from Genesis to the book of Joshua, you would have understood that the whole story from Abraham and to Joshua, is all about God fulfilling his original covenant (promise) to Abraham, in Genesis 17. It was the same covenant to be fulfilled along Abraham's line - Isaac and Jacob.
This covenant was to ensure that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - thus the Israelites or Hebrews, the twelve tribes of Israel-Jacob - would live in the land of the Canaanites, which they would call home.
At the time of Deuteronomy, Moses didn't complete god's covenant in Abraham's covenant; Moses only did his part was to liberate the Israelites out of slavery and out of Egypt, in the "exodus" that lasted 40 years. God-Abraham covenant was only fulfilled when they took Canaan, under a new prophet, Joshua.
You wrote:
God did choose Joshua.
Seriously, britedream. Did you even bother to read Deuteronomy to the end of the book (Deuteronomy 34), with Moses' passing?
Deuteronomy 34 showed that Joshua was chosen among them, which I have highlighted in red:
I am agnostic, not Jewish or Christian, and yet I have better scholarship than you, because I have actually read the books from Genesis to Joshua. I am basing my interpretation solely where it belonged; you on the other hand, have been dancing around verse 18, ignoring the related verses (18:15-17) and ignoring Deuteronomy 34:9, when a new prophet was risen among them.
You keep saying that the new prophet would be risen by God. Well, read Deuteronomy 34:9, britedream.
I have highlighted the above passage in red. Joshua received the "spirit of wisdom" (34:9), another word for "prophethood" for which all prophets supposed receive such "wisdom" from God and they are supposedly spoke on god's behalf, which corresponded to Deuteronomy 18:18 - "...and will put my words in his mouth..."
And the passage "
and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses" (34:9), corresponded with 18:15 a prophet "unto like thee;
unto him ye shall hearken", and with 18:18 "like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and
he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."
And in Joshua 1:1, God did spoke to Joshua:
And God spoke through Joshua, which the Israelites were to follow Joshua's command, as they did with Moses, and just as the newer generation of Israelites followed Moses' command, the Israelites were to follow Joshua:
This passage (Joshua 1:17) corresponds with (Deuteronomy 18:15),
The book of Deuteronomy was written as meant to be Moses' instructions to the Israelites once Moses is gone, and they were to cross the Jordan, and settled in Canaan. It had nothing to with setting another new religion by Muhammad. Nowhere in verse 18 say anything about a new religion.
Deuteronomy 18 is simply parts of those instructions.
I have from the start, when I had joined this argument between you and tumah, have pointed out that you should read and understand the complete chapter in context, including that of verse 18, britedream.
I didn't leave out verse 18, but have repeatedly explain to you that the chapter have been divided into 3 sections:
- 18:1-8, the rights given to the Levites, when everyone settled in Canaan.
- 18:9-14, what they shouldn't do - follow the Canaanite religious practices or customs.
- 18:15-19, and who they should listen to, when they enter Canaan - the new prophet, Moses' successor.
Each section has a common denominator: what are the Israelites are to do when they cross the Jordan, and move into Canaan, their new home. Nothing in those 22 verses indicate that a new religion will start nearly 2000 years later.
Verse 15 to 18 is about listening to their new prophet, when Moses died, that prophet would be the one who would succeed him, and lead them as Moses did for 40 years. These verses are about his successor, whom they should heed. The "unto like thee" or "like him" has nothing to do about a new prophet starting a new religion.
Moses wasn't starting a new religion, because as the Exodus keep repeating, they were to follow the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob". Moses was just one of the many parts, who was meant to fulfill Abraham's original covenant (Genesis 17), which was the same covenant given to Isaac (Genesis 17:7, 10, 19) and to Jacob. The covenant was that the land of Canaan would be home to their descendants, the Israelites.
Neither Ishmael, nor Muhammad was ever part of that covenant.
You constant contradict yourself. For instance, you tell tumah to leave out Islam and Judaism:
And yet, the whole idea of you quoting 18:18, is to start a claim that the new prophet will start a new religion, thus Islam.
You lack integrity, when you say one thing, but you do exactly what you have told others not to do.
And you are certainly very incompetent in scholarship. You keep making pitiful excuses and using straw man.