The Slow Death Of Christianity In The United States

[sooda]

Okay, don't answer it then.

CYRUS.... You don't even know who that is, do you?

 

[PruePhillip]

CYRUS.... You don't even know who that is, do you?

Yes, the Edict of Cyrus. Famous document.
Cyrus allowed the Jews to go home.
Daniel said the temple will be rebuilt
but at a later time it will be destroyed again by the
same kingdom which cut off the Messiah. But
the Messiah will not die for Himself but for His
people.

So, maybe Daniel was written after Jesus?
Had to have been, according to the logic of our
scribes today.

 

[sooda]

Yes, the Edict of Cyrus. Famous document.
Cyrus allowed the Jews to go home.
Daniel said the temple will be rebuilt
but at a later time it will be destroyed again by the
same kingdom which cut off the Messiah. But
the Messiah will not die for Himself but for His
people.

So, maybe Daniel was written after Jesus?
Had to have been, according to the logic of our
scribes today.

Daniel did not write about Jesus at all.

 

[PruePhillip]

Daniel did not write about Jesus at all.

So who is this "Messiah" who was killed by the Romans?

 

[sooda]

So who is this "Messiah" who was killed by the Romans?

Daniel didn't write about Jesus..

Post the verse.

 

[PruePhillip]

Daniel didn't write about Jesus..

Post the verse.

Daniel 9:25
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem to the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street
shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the
prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood,
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Here's a timeline of Cyrus to the Messiah and the end of the Jews.
and troubled times between them (Greeks, Romans)
The Messiah is cut off
People of the prince probably refers to General Titus
who returned to Rome and became Emperor.
Desolation determined - three wars against Rome.

 

[sooda]

Daniel 9:25
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem to the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street
shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the
prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood,
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Here's a timeline of Cyrus to the Messiah and the end of the Jews.
and troubled times between them (Greeks, Romans)
The Messiah is cut off
People of the prince probably refers to General Titus
who returned to Rome and became Emperor.
Desolation determined - three wars against Rome.

Daniel 9:25
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem to the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street
shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the
prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood,
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Here's a timeline of Cyrus to the Messiah and the end of the Jews.
and troubled times between them (Greeks, Romans)
The Messiah is cut off
People of the prince probably refers to General Titus
who returned to Rome and became Emperor.
Desolation determined - three wars against Rome.

Daniel is talking about the coming end of the Babylonian exile.

 

[blü 2]

So where do the Jews come from?

It's unclear where the Semitic people originated ─ perhaps in or near Mesopotamia, perhaps further east. The Hebrews were Canaanites. Yahweh is first found in Egyptian texts, where he's a god among the Semitic desert tribes south of modern Israel.

What happened to the Jews when they denied Jesus was the Messiah?

Nothing as such. The Roman sack of Jerusalem was about political power, not about Christianity. Christians became and remained THE problem as they came to power after Constantine, normalizing antisemitism so that various parts of the diaspora were preyed on by a range of Christian authorities. Central to this was the Christian church, whose antisemitism may date back to John's gospel. Rome, Orthodoxy, and later in his life Luther, and other protestant denominations, used such inflammatory labels as 'killers of Christ' &c, and pursued pogroms, the Inquisition, on and on up to the Holocaust. As an existing social phenomenon it's alive and well right now ─ you can find it in England, the USA and other parts of the West, and it's still active in Russia, Poland and other Slavic states.

This is the mentality. "Scholars" date text based upon real events which the bible claim as prophecy before the event.

Which will the impartial onlooker think more likely? Pretended prophecy actually written after the event? Or magic? Since we have not a single authenticated example of magic, it's not a hard question.

I think it means when the Gentiles treat the Gospel in the same way the Jews did.

It's unclear when the Jews might be said to have encountered 'the gospels' in any meaningful form. Only Paul's letters predate the fall of the Temple, and there was no canon constituting the NT till the 4th century CE, though it appears its contents were fairly well known by then.

No. Good philosophy is the ability to make distinctions, respect nuances, be sensitive to the issue and take on board all aspects of an issue. You are not doing that

So your advice is to believe the words are full of magic and all you have to do is get subtle and sensitive. If I were to offer any advice, it'd be to get a clear scientific and philosophical grasp on the problems with relying on magic.

 

[PruePhillip]

Only Paul's letters predate the fall of the Temple, and there was no canon constituting the NT till the 4th century CE...

Luke researched his Gospel, interviewing people or perusing extant texts.
Luke most likely died with Paul. His Acts ends suddenly when they reached
Rome. With the exception of John's Revelation, none of the writers of the NT
had any knowledge of the fall of Jerusalem - it hadn't happened.

The OT was canon about the time of Ezra and the minor prophets. That's
why Maccabees and other books are not included - but Daniel, written during
the Captivity, was included.
To many Christians the NT works were canon because they came from the
eyewitnesses to the events - no other reason. Age of the text didn't come into
it, as opposed to the OT.

 

[PruePhillip]

So your advice is to believe the words are full of magic and all you have to do is get subtle and sensitive. If I were to offer any advice, it'd be to get a clear scientific and philosophical grasp on the problems with relying on magic.

Here's some non-nuanced "arguments" I encountered in the last week.
King David was a king of 800 acres
Edict of Cyrus made no mention of the Jews
The return from Babylon was only a trickle, for decades

I call this "argument by implication"
It's not a good argument.
For years people would tell me, "There's no evidence there ever was a King David."
Meaning - "There was no King David. The bible lied."
That's what, a non sequitur?
It's a form of manipulation.

 

[sooda]

Luke researched his Gospel, interviewing people or perusing extant texts.
Luke most likely died with Paul. His Acts ends suddenly when they reached
Rome. With the exception of John's Revelation, none of the writers of the NT
had any knowledge of the fall of Jerusalem - it hadn't happened.

The OT was canon about the time of Ezra and the minor prophets. That's
why Maccabees and other books are not included - but Daniel, written during
the Captivity, was included.
To many Christians the NT works were canon because they came from the
eyewitnesses to the events - no other reason. Age of the text didn't come into
it, as opposed to the OT.

Daniel is not a prophet and he was never in Babylon or the "captivity".

 

[sooda]

Here's some non-nuanced "arguments" I encountered in the last week.
King David was a king of 800 acres
Edict of Cyrus made no mention of the Jews
The return from Babylon was only a trickle, for decades

I call this "argument by implication"
It's not a good argument.
For years people would tell me, "There's no evidence there ever was a King David."
Meaning - "There was no King David. The bible lied."
That's what, a non sequitur?
It's a form of manipulation.

King David wasn't even king of 10 acres.

Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City ...
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/ancient...
Jan 11, 2019 · Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000; still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.)

 

[sooda]

https://sichaconversation.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/the-edict-of-cyrus.pdf

No mention of the Jews.

 

[PruePhillip]

King David wasn't even king of 10 acres.

Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City ...
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/ancient...
Jan 11, 2019 · Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000; still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.)

That's the capitol we are referring to here. Israel in David's day conquered the Philistines,
Moabites, Edomites and the like. Under Solomon Israel was an empire to the Euphrates.
Jerusalem has always been a cultic site.

 

[PruePhillip]

Daniel is not a prophet and he was never in Babylon or the "captivity".

So who was the Messiah that was "cut off" ?
Was there some Babylonian Messiah?

 

[sooda]

That's the capitol we are referring to here. Israel in David's day conquered the Philistines,
Moabites, Edomites and the like. Under Solomon Israel was an empire to the Euphrates.
Jerusalem has always been a cultic site.

The conquests are gross exaggerations. Solomon had no "empire".

 

[sooda]

So who was the Messiah that was "cut off" ?
Was there some Babylonian Messiah?

Daniel 9 -- Two messiahs, none "the" messiah

 

[blü 2]

Luke researched his Gospel, interviewing people or perusing extant texts.

What Luke actually did was take Mark, note what Matthew had done with his version of Mark, and then make his own, adding and subtracting to taste.

Luke most likely died with Paul. His Acts ends suddenly when they reached Rome. With the exception of John's Revelation, none of the writers of the NT had any knowledge of the fall of Jerusalem - it hadn't happened.

Paul wrote in the 50s, the Temple fell 70, Mark was written around 75, Matthew and Luke about 85 and John (and Acts) about 100.

The OT was canon about the time of Ezra and the minor prophets. That's why Maccabees and other books are not included - but Daniel, written during the Captivity, was included.

Scholarship is firm that Daniel was written after 167 CE, but includes earlier Babylonian folktales about the folk-hero Daniel on which the Furnace, the Writing and the Lions in the Tanakh were based.

And our impartial onlooker would agree this was what the evidence said.

To many Christians the NT works were canon because they came from the eyewitnesses to the events - no other reason. Age of the text didn't come into it, as opposed to the OT.

From the way you've phrased that I take it you're not personally arguing that, so I'll let it pass.

I call this "argument by implication"
It's not a good argument.

The historicity of David and his importance are factual questions and will be answered, or found unanswerable, by archaeology. As I said, I hadn't seen his existence seriously disputed till you mentioned it.

 

[PruePhillip]

What Luke actually did was take Mark, note what Matthew had done with his version of Mark, and then make his own, adding and subtracting to taste.
Paul wrote in the 50s, the Temple fell 70, Mark was written around 75, Matthew and Luke about 85 and John (and Acts) about 100.

I like your precision, or your choice of opinion.
Read that famous ship wreck account in Acts - it's long been of interest
to, well, yes, scholars - it's a rare account of first century maritime
practices. And you think some guy made it up? Occam's Razor here -
I say the author was on that boat and that's why you get that detail.
That guy was one of the most famous historians of the period - Luke.

 

[PruePhillip]

Scholarship is firm that Daniel was written after 167 CE, but includes earlier Babylonian folktales about the folk-hero Daniel on which the Furnace, the Writing and the Lions in the Tanakh were based..

But he saw the killing of the Messiah and the destruction of the temple
and the Jewish people. What say our "scholars" to this? How do they
explain it away?