YoursTrue
Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
That is correct, we're not there yet. It's late, perhaps later we can talk about this in greater depth. G'nite.
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What is your opinion of Jesus?
- Thread starter Redsilverxx
- Start date
InChrist
Free4ever
I agree, there’s no Messiah without the OT. Yes, the Jewish scribes wrote the OT books. That doesn’t mean some, even many Jewish religious leaders missed realizing Jesus Christ fulfilled prophecy. At the time Jesus lived many Jews were looking for a Messiah/political leader to deliver them from the tyranny of the Roman Empire and restore the nation of Israel… though maybe that wasn’t God’s plan or timing, at that point. Nevertheless, ALL the first followers and believers in Jesus Christ as the prophesied Messiah were Jewish.Sure. There is no Messiah without the OT, and when we research what the absolute experts on the Messiah - the Jews that literally wrote the book on the subject - have to say about the attributes of the Messiah, they describe someone that is wholly human, a great leader, a perfect judge - and certainly not someone so incompetent that they would have to have a '2nd Coming' in order to complete what they are to do pursuant to the OT - which is to unite the entire world under Judaism. It's also quite noteworthy what attributes are NOT foretold - a virgin birth, a crucifixion, a resurrection, a birth in Bethlehem, or an origin in Nazareth. Those claims by the NT authors are clearly frauds. - with Is 7:14 being the most egregious. Further, the Messiah is to have no divine attributes - which is why mainstream Judaism rejected him as soon as divinity was ascribed to him.
Jewish eschatology on Messianic attributes are summarized below.
The Messiah - Key beliefs in Judaism - GCSE Religious Studies Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize
Learn about and revise key Jewish beliefs with BBC Bitesize Religious Studies - AQA.www.bbc.co.uk
“Isaiah 53 is a classic chapter portraying the life, death, and resurrection of Messiah. He would be despised by many (53:3), He would give his life for us and take our sins upon Himself (53:7), He would suffer (53:10) and be resurrected (53:10-12). Many Jewish people, when reading Isaiah 53 for the first time, have thought that these words must be from the New Testament, since they paint such a clear portrait of Yeshua. It is astonishing that these verses are in fact from the Hebrew Bible; they were written by Isaiah over 700 years before Yeshua was born!”
Fulfilled Prophecy as an Evangelistic Tool
God uses many ways to draw people to Himself through His Holy Spirit – and one of these ways is fulfilled prophecy. There are many prophecies in the...
www.chosenpeople.com
InChrist
Free4ever
That is not the Gospel message of the scriptures.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Stories written about eyewitnesses is not evidence. Anyone can write a story, but that doesn't mean it is a true story.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Isaiah 53. Jews believe it is about Israel, Christians believe it is about Jesus, and Baha’is believe it is about Baha’u’llah.
You have to read the whole chapter and each verse to determine what or who it is about.
Christians and Baha’is believe Isaiah 53 is about the Messiah but only some verses could apply to Jesus whereas all the verses can be applied to Baha’u’llah, who we believe was the messiah of the latter days. Jesus was a messiah, but he was not and never will be the messiah of the latter days.
Regarding Isaiah 53:3, Jesus was despised and rejected by certain Jews who wanted Him executed, but He was not rejected by most men. Jesus was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, but He was esteemed by many men. Certainly, Isaiah 53:4, Isaiah 53:5, and Isaiah 53:8 could apply to Jesus, but they also apply to Baha’u’llah. However, Isaiah 53:9 and Isaiah 53:10 cannot apply to Jesus because Jesus did not make His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death. Jesus made his soul an offering for sin, but He did not see his seed and His days were not prolonged, so there is no way Isaiah 53:10 can be about Jesus, and that is how we know it is about someone else who would be the messiah of the latter days.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Believe what about Jesus?
I believe in Jesus but I do not believe everything that Christians believe about Jesus.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, that is not true. I know many atheists who never hate or judge. They are loving and caring.
It seems to me that it is the Christians who hate and judge.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
If there is a hell it is not for people who hate Jesus, it is for people who hate God.
Matthew 12:31-32 “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven. Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.”
In those verses Jesus said it is unforgivable to hate the Holy Spirit and one will not be forgiven in this life or in the afterlife.
According to Baha’i beliefs, the Holy Spirit is the light of God. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is detestation of the light of God, God's qualities. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is detestation of God since one hates God’s qualities.
Jesus was a lamp that shone on earth and brought the light of God to humanity because Jesus reflected God’s qualities. It is forgivable to hate the lamp, because one might not recognize that the lamp is from God, because they might not see the qualities of God in the lamp. That is why Jesus said that anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I don't have any reason to.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
The difference is that walking of a cliff is demonstrably bad for you.
Nobody has to take that on "faith".
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
The human brain.
Well, looking at my surroundings, it seems that "believing in jesus" or not doesn't make a shred of differences.
There are non-believers who are genuine loving, altruistic and overall decent people.
There are non-believers who are haters.
And the same goes for believers.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Claims aren't evidence
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
It's just another claim that these number in the thousands.
And also, off course, even if we accept that there were thousands, that still doesn't make it true.
There are thousands of claimed alien abductees. Doesn't mean diddly squat.
You seem to attempt to making an argument from popularity.
100% of people can believe something and still be wrong about it.
I'm curious on, why people don't believe Jesus. Even many people who claim the believe in Jesus, don't really believe what he said. It is interesting, because I think Jesus is great and his teachings the best.
As others have mentioned, the lack of evidence (apart from the various texts - so not exactly great evidence) is the main reason as to not accepting a version of Jesus as depicted, and considering when all this happened and as to the knowledge available then. As to the above, when one knows enough about human behaviour and where such might be derived, it hardly needs any mystical explanations, given that from good evidence it seems we did evolve from much more reactionary/instinctual creatures and where the thinking part has evolved over a long period of time. Hence why we so often vary as individuals too. Some of us try not to judge, and this is based more on knowing the nature of humanity and its variability than much else. But then this all comes from that dangerous thing - thinking - rather than the acceptance of some particular religious text - perhaps dictating as to what we should believe.
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Jesus has never offered me a thing.
I've had people who claim to speak for Jesus tell me that vague passages in a book written by other people who claim to speak for Jesus constitute an offer from Jesus. That's the closest I've ever experienced and it was... underwhelming.
This doesn't strike me as something that someone who's genuinely interested in other people's perspectives would say.
Why did you start this thread?
Convenient that the stories of thousands of "eyewitnesses" didn't emerge until after any eyewitnesses would have been dead, if the stories were true.
Belacqua
New Member
I'm going to risk sophistry here, and insist that there are two meanings of the word "believe."
The one that comes to mind first is probably "assent to the truth of a proposition." So in the sentence "I believe in Jesus" the verb would have the same sense as "I believe the earth is round." I hold it to be true.
The second, however, is different. "I believe in equal rights for women" doesn't imply that you think such things exist -- sadly, they don't yet in many places. The meaning here is "I hold this to be a good thing." It's unprovable, as value judgments usually are. But it can still be an extremely strong commitment.
Among Japanese people I've known who converted to Christianity, all of them did so for the second sense of "believe." Nobody read history and became persuaded of the truth of the miracles or the resurrection. All of them experienced some example of Christian goodness (through teachers or missionaries) and joined up because they believed in the mission. In fact I (rather rudely) once asked a Christian lady from Nagasaki, "Do you think Christ literally rose from the dead?," and she had clearly never thought about it before. That isn't why she was interested.
I guess for me, my view of Jesus has to do with John 1:1, where he says that Jesus is the Logos. You know I'm sure that this is an adaptation of Greek thought, where the One emanates or co-exists with the Logos. Where Logos is not simply "Word" but the logic and principles by which the universe operates. So what's interesting to me is the question, "if the principles of the universe were (by some miracle) incarnated as an individual person, what would it do?"
One can be committed to this ideal even if one doesn't hold it to be historically factual. And Jesus, for better or worse, has been a kind of focal point for how we think about the ideal for a very long time. And this history itself, the interpretations and accretions of thought, make the character a crucial concept in our moral thinking.
Sorry, this is my first substantive post on this forum, and I may have gone a bit haywire.
Ajax
Active Member
Criteria for Messiah.
1. He must be a Jew (Deut 17:15, Num 24:17) - The only condition fulfilled by Jesus.
2. He must be a direct descendant of King David (Isaiah 11:1) through King Solomon (I Proverbs 22:8-10), only if Solomon kept his faith in God Yahweh (II Chronicles 7 :19) which, however, did not keep finally (1 Kings 11:4).
3. The Great Sanhedrin (Great Council) will be restored (Isaiah 1:26)
4. Once he is king, the leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)
5. All the world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)
6. The Messiah will be a man of the world, an observant Jew with the "fear of God." He won't be devine. (Isaiah 11:2)
7. Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership. (Isaiah 11:4)
8. The knowledge of God will fill the world. (Isaiah 11:9)
9. It will attract people from all cultures and nations. (Isaiah 11:10)
10. All the Israelites will return to their homeland. (Isaiah 11:12)
11. There will be no more famine or disease, and death will end. (Isaiah 25:8)
12. All the dead will rise. (Isaiah 26:19)
13. The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and rejoicing. (Isaiah 51:11)
14. He will be a messenger of peace. (Isaiah 52:7)
15. The nations will recognize the mistakes they made in Israel. (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
16. The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance. (Zechariah 8:23)
17. The ruined cities of Israel will be restored. (Ezekiel 16:55)
18. The weapons of war will be destroyed. (Ezekiel 39:9)
19. The Temple will be rebuilt. (Ezekiel 40)
20. The whole world will serve God together. (Zephaniah 3:9)
21. The Jews will know the Torah (Testament), without study. (Jeremiah 31:33)
22. He will take barren land and make it fruitful and abundant. (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9).
23. Universal worldwide acceptance of the Jewish God and the Jewish religion (Isaiah 2:3 11:10 66:23 Micah 4:2-3 Zechariah 14:9) Zechariah 8:23 "Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you”.
Especially in the latter, it seems that Jesus (as God) told the prophets Zechariah, Micah and Isaiah to write that the Jewish religion is the only true religion.
If he fails in one of these, then he cannot be the Messiah.
The criteria for Messiah are too many and too harsh. That's why the Jewish people are still waiting for one, who will never come.
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