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Does the Judeo-Christian Bible say Jesus is God?

You misused that fallacy. When you make claims about the failed prophecies of the Bible the burden of proof is upon you. I made a general observation, that prophecies as seeing something in the future fail in the Bible. Almost all of them fail on being overly vague alone. A vague prophecy with a poorly defined timeline can be "fulfilled" multiple times. That alone makes it a failed prophecy since there is more than one supposedly valid interpretation for it. This article is a good read:

Biblical prophecies - RationalWiki

And it starts rather early on with reasonable standards for a prophecy. If this was not applied to your religion of choice you would probably agree to all of its stipulations. For example if a Muslim claimed a prophecy you would probably demand that:

  1. It must be accurate. A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it is not accurate, because knowledge (and thus foreknowledge) excludes inaccurate statements. TLDR: It's true.
  2. It must be in the Bible. A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it is not in the Bible, because Biblical by definition foreknowledge can only come from the Bible itself, rather than modern reinterpretations of the text. TLDR: It's in plain words in the Bible.
  3. It must be precise and unambiguous. A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if meaningless philosophical musings or multiple possible ideas could fulfill the foreknowledge, because ambiguity prevents one from knowing whether the foreknowledge was intentional rather than accidental. TLDR: Vague "predictions" don't count.
  4. It must be improbable. A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of a pure guess, because foreknowledge requires a person to actually know something true, while a correct guess doesn't mean that the guesser knows anything. This also excludes contemporary beliefs that happened be true but were believed to be true without solid evidence. TLDR: Lucky guesses don't count.
  5. It must have been unknown. A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of an educated guess based off contemporary knowledge, because foreknowledge requires a person to know a statement when it would have been impossible, outside of supernatural power, for that person to know it. TLDR: Ideas of the time don't count.
In the above change "Bible" into the book of whatever faith one is referring to. I can't refute a specific prophecy unless you tell us what the prophecy is and what your interpretation of it is. The so called Daniel prophecy fails because there is no reasonable original date. What believers tend to do is to take the date of the event that they want to be the goal of the prophecy and work backwards and try to justify the date that they chose. This is not how prophecy is done.
I didn't make claims about failed Bible prophecies, you did. I simply asked you to back up your claims, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Also why would I give you a prophecy to refute, when you're the one making the claim that there are prophecies that have failed. The burden of proof is on you.

Now although I don't agree with scholars saying Daniel was produced in the second century B.C, using their date still refutes your claim that Christians worked backwards to justify a date.
Daniel said Messiah would be cut off, and that the prince would come in and destroy the sanctuary. Same thing Jesus said in the Scriptures and was fulfilled. They crucified him and Titus came in and destroyed the city and the temple. Secular History teaches BOTH EVENTS HAPPENING, and you can't refute it with your conjecture.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Please elaborate. Claims mean nothing without facts or some kinda evidence backing them up;)
Let's start with some very general things:
Judaism centers around obedience to the Torah. Paul's religion centered around faith in Jesus, the Messiah.
Judaism believes that the Messiah is an earthly King who will bring all the Jews back to Israel and will usher in world peace. Paul's religion taught that the Messiah died for the sins of all.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Right. That's the idea, you don't read Genesis 1:26 as vague, yet that is the concept of your argument.

Again, the second part of that verse, g- d, not vague, as you follow it, yet your argument is that it actually is vague.

Your argument is 'theoretical', in other words, doesn't infer anything. Not even sure why you are 'arguing' this if you are reading the discussion.
I don't see why it is theoretical. It is certainly less theoretical than yours.
 

dfnj

Well-Known Member
My main goal of this post is to provide a place for a civilized interfaith discussion on whether Jesus is God. Since I am making the positive claim that Jesus is God, I will have to provide evidence for my position.Here goes:

I think Jesus became God at the moment of resurrection. Otherwise, what's the point.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I think Jesus became God at the moment of resurrection. Otherwise, what's the point.
Well according to Christians, it's worthless unless he was God when he died on the Cross.

To me as a Jew, it's offensive to say that God became a man for any reason. It flies in the face of the very notion of who God is.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I don't see why it is theoretical. It is certainly less theoretical than yours.
The way I read the Bible, no theory required.

All one God, different names, where is the 'theory'.

And context, to who is believing that, or, religion context, in other words.

There are Christians who read the text differently, notice how they also derive 'one God', as it says in the New Testament. So they understood this similarly, obviously, even if different configuration.

So, not theoretical.


If you are going to argue that there is a 'different god', possibility, you start refuting your own religious beliefs, and you aren't arguing that anyway.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The way I read the Bible, no theory required.

All one God, different names, where is the 'theory'.

And context, to who is believing that, or, religion context, in other words.

There are Christians who read the text differently, notice how they also derive 'one God', as it says in the New Testament. So they understood this similarly, obviously, even if different configuration.

So, not theoretical.


If you are going to argue that there is a 'different god', possibility, you start refuting your own religious beliefs, and you aren't arguing that anyway.
Some things in the sacred texts are pretty much obvious. Others require interpretation. For example, "She became pregnant and gave birth to Cain," well, you can't mess up what that means, right? But how about, "You shall not boil a kid in its own mother's milk"?? What's that all about? I mean it's commanded three times in the Torah, so it's pretty darn important, it's not likely to literally refer to not boiling a baby goat in its own mother milk, or at least not JUST that, because it speaks to something bigger than that, by its sheer repetition. So what does it mean? You ask an Orthodox Jew, you get one answer. You ask a Reform Jew, you get two more answers. You ask a Christian, you get yet another answer. You ask a secular scholar, he'll have his own opinion too. You have all these different INTERPRETATIONS because it is NOT clear.

And to make matters worse, if one interpretation says X, and another interpretations says not-X, they can't both be right. One (or even both of them) must be wrong. Even though they are examining the same texts.

And so you have to look at the MERITS OF THE ARGUMENTS. Some arguments are just BETTER than others. I used to teach English and I would grade essays. I told my students, you can hold a different opinion than mine, but you must support it from the text. They sometimes got the wrong idea from this that I "meant" that all opinions were equally valid. WRONGO BONGO. I said they had to support it from the text. I got all sorts of pitiful essays that tried to fly on air. They would quote lines from the text that had no relationship to their argument, or that was quoted out of context, or that they deliberately misquoted, and they expected me to give them a passing grade.

All this to say, sometimes a reading is obvious. Yad hey and vav hey is the name of God in the Tanakh. It's so obvious, that it screams at you. Other things need to be proven. Is this God the ONLY God in existence, or is he simply Israel's God among many other gods, or does that depend on where in scripture you are reading? Here is a question that I would say, support your position with the text. I only get uppity if someone has an esoteric position and presumes that their position is the only one, ignoring that the mainstream disagrees with them.
 
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sooda

Veteran Member
I didn't make claims about failed Bible prophecies, you did. I simply asked you to back up your claims, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Also why would I give you a prophecy to refute, when you're the one making the claim that there are prophecies that have failed. The burden of proof is on you.

Now although I don't agree with scholars saying Daniel was produced in the second century B.C, using their date still refutes your claim that Christians worked backwards to justify a date.
Daniel said Messiah would be cut off, and that the prince would come in and destroy the sanctuary. Same thing Jesus said in the Scriptures and was fulfilled. They crucified him and Titus came in and destroyed the city and the temple. Secular History teaches BOTH EVENTS HAPPENING, and you can't refute it with your conjecture.

You think Daniel lived 455 years?

Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon in 620 BC and Daniel was writing about Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 165 BC
 
You think Daniel lived 455 years?

Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon in 620 BC and Daniel was writing about Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 165 BC
Not at all. With the power of God (who knows the beginning from the end) Daniel was able to give 100% accuracy on future events. This is why liberal scholars try to say it was written after the fact:D.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Not at all. With the power of God (who knows the beginning from the end) Daniel was able to give 100% accuracy on future events. This is why liberal scholars try to say it was written after the fact:D.

Daniel has NEVER been considered a prophet in Judaism... and he was never in Babylon. Has nothing to do with liberal scholars.

Daniel is not even the name of the author. Its based on a Canaanite story of Danel who was a judge.The story dates to 1500 BC and turned up in Ras Shamra.

Most prophesy is after the fact... That's why the Bible was constantly edited and amended or added to.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Daniel is a "pseudonymous author" who wrote what is euphemistically called ex eventu prophecy.

This means the story, according to such modern Biblical commentary, apparently should be that Daniel was no prophet of the LORD, because he wrote his book at the time of the Maccabees, around 165 BC, or about 400 years later than the time of the Babylonian exile in 586 BC.

Rather than being a first-hand historical account by the eye-witness testimony of a Daniel carried from his homeland by King Nebuchadnezzar, this later "Daniel" wrote after the event. His prophecies are not supernaturally revealed by a God who declares the end from the beginning.

His "prophecies" are in fact, past history masquerading as prophecy. Daniel, we are invited to believe, wrote his book as a "parable" in the form of the apocalyptic genres we find in Jewish apocalyptic literature typically composed during the Maccabean revolts.

However, we are further assured by this commentary, we are not to be alarmed. The goal of this later Daniel, like that of the rest of that crop of inter-testament writers, was worthy enough. The writers of those books such as 1 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 4 Enoch, et al wished to encourage God's suffering people with the message that their God would at last break the heathen nations and so give His saints their reward.

To achieve their literary goal such apocalyptic writers simply looked back at previous histories of their people, and re-interpreted such past history in the light of their current sufferings, even passing off such past history as prophecy. And so most "scholars" and "commentators" today place Daniel in this same category.

Traditionally, these modern scholars have justified their arguments under four headings. They allege Daniel has historical inaccuracies, or possibly more fairly, anachronisms. They allege linguistic irreconcilables (e.g. Daniel uses Greek words, and wrote in a later Hebrew and Aramaic style).

continued

WHEN Was the Book of Daniel Written?
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Well according to Christians, it's worthless unless he was God when he died on the Cross.

To me as a Jew, it's offensive to say that God became a man for any reason. It flies in the face of the very notion of who God is.
I think that sometimes in the Christian and Hebrew scriptures, when they say that G_d said or did something, they're referring to what one of His prophets said or did, or what an outpouring of His spirit has done. I think that Christian scriptures do the same thing with Jesus. Sometimes when they say that G_d said or did something, they're referring to something that Jesus said or did. I think that's where the idea comes from in Christianity of saying that Jesus is G_d, but I think that's a misunderstanding of Christian scriptures.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
No one completely recognizes who God is. How can the finite comprehend the infinite? We know God in part. We can experience God, but again it is in part, the way a child knows their father. So yes, we can love him even though we do not fully know him, even though we may have misunderstanding about him.

I believe we know Him through His words and actions.

I believe with the power of God Elijah does miracles. Then we see Jesus do miracles. This is just a beginning of course.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
That isn't fair. All the prophecy of the Old Testament pointed to a messiah who would be an anointed warrior king who would vanquish their enemies.

I know lots of Jewish people who believe in God.. They just don't believe Jesus is a son of God.

Who then has blinded their eyes to keep them from seeing that Jesus is God in the flesh?
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
First of all, just because the NT is written by Jews doesn't mean it is Judaism, thus it is not "Judeo."

But in addition to this, Christians mistranslate many verses of the Tanakh to make them more messianic. Some of this is due to the fact that Christians translate form the terribly translated Septuagint rather than the Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts show how faithful the Hebrew texts are.

I believe Jews mis-translate the Tanakh to eliminate the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah. Evidently adherents of Judaism think the truth is what they wish it to be instead of what it is.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
What crap. You haven't seen Jesus either. What a pious poop you are.

I believe I can thank you for that. I have seen a vision of Jesus but not only that I have come to know God personally in Jesus and through His word.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I believe Jews mis-translate the Tanakh to eliminate the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah. Evidently adherents of Judaism think the truth is what they wish it to be instead of what it is.

Nope.. Christians mistranslate the Old Testament to change the meaning of Messiah.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I believe Jews mis-translate the Tanakh to eliminate the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah. Evidently adherents of Judaism think the truth is what they wish it to be instead of what it is.
I believe Jews mis-translate the Tanakh to eliminate the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah. Evidently adherents of Judaism think the truth is what they wish it to be instead of what it is.
One of the most astonishing things about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that they are virtually identical with the Hebrew manuscripts we have today. Iowa your charge against the Jews is groundless and anti- Semitic.
 
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