A Study Of Christianity being Valid Part 1

[Souldoctor]

I am new to the Forum here. My name is Joseph , and I'm from NC, near Ft. Bragg. I was a Christian in my youth and recently when my father passed I dove into serious studies from 2002 to 2009.

I am not Jewish, but it is necessary to present a Jewish standpoint because Jesus was a Jew also.

I have a lot of ground to cover, and the reason I'm posting this, since I have no specific religion "myself" any longer, is in hope to get commentary that agrees or disagrees with certain things so I can include them in my studies.

My entire family is Christian, except for 1 who is Jewish, and myself, which I claim no demonation currently. For now, I believe in God, and it stops there until I learn more about defining the path I wish to go. My own path is fine for me right now.

My study started when my father died, he was Christian, but wore a Star David around his neck. So I asked my Step Mother " why" ? and she said just because it looked nice. So it had no significant meaning.

However, I started thinking, why if Jesus was a Jew, the Jews do not accept he was the "One" ???

That is the single basis of my discussion. WHY

So in order to learn why, I have to share viewpoints from the Jewish point of view. After all, Christianity was built on Judiaism, but Judiaism is the Oldest religion in the world, as far as I know.

The bulk of this first thread and others to come is taken from material by Eliyahu Silver which discusses the things they looked at in Christianity, from a "Jewish" standpoint.

When I first read some of these things, I was a bit taken back, because it went against many things I thought I knew or understood. However, let me get on with the view points, and hopefully, after all the things are presented, I can address some things, and offer my own deeper opinion.
I also hope others here will find great interest in these topics. Its a great study, but it does require WORK.

All I want is the simple TRUTH, obtaining simple truths though can be very difficult. It shouldnt be, but it is.

I will now begin sharing the basic portions, and remember, these "initial" views are taken from a Jewish stance. Jesus was a Jew, and God also said that the Jews are Gods Chosen People. So yes, Houston We Have A Problem. Because Jews believe in One God, not 3 in One, and they do not believe Jesus was God, a Messiah, or a Prophet. Christians Believe in Trinity, and Jesus was the Son Of God, And the Second Coming Jesus will right the world, the way Jews believe a Messiah will.

So the question is WHY

"Why Dont The Jewish People Recognize The New Testament"
content by E.Silver & Y. Goldstein

Introduction

For almost 2000 years the Jewish people have not recognized the New Testament, although all those who contributed to the New Testament were Jewish. All the writers of the New Testament were Jewish, but nevertheless the Jewish people reject that which 1,000,000,000 people consider to be the word of G-d.
What is it that the Jews see in the New Testament that is apparently not seen by all the Christians?
The Jews look at the New Testament from an Old Testament viewpoint. About 3300 years ago G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish people. Millions of people watched this event when G-d spoke from Mount Sinai to the Jewish people. There G-d gave to the Jewish people the Holy Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This does not only contain the Ten Commandments, but it contains a total of 613 commandments that G-d commanded the Jewish people to fulfill.

The Torah is the most holy part of the Hebrew Bible.

Torah teaches that there is one G-d, Y-H-W-H, who is a jealous G-d, who allows no other gods beside Him. See Exodus 20:3. G-d's name, Y-H-W-H, appears almost 7000 times in the Old Testament. The King James translation translates this name as "The LORD", with small capital letters. This G-d is the one and only G-d for the Jews, as it is written in the Hebrew Bible;
"Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD, he is G-d in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there is no other." Deuteronomy 4:39
"See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me." Deuteronomy.32:39
"I am He, before Me no god was created, neither shall there be after Me." Isaiah 43:10
"Thus saith the LORD, the King of Israel and his redeemer, the LORD of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me there is no god." Isaiah 44:6
"I am the LORD, and there is none else." Isaiah 45:18
This Jewish G-d is one, as it is written; "Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H is our G-d, .Y-H-W-H is one." Deuteronomy 6:4 The King James translation translates this as: "Hear Israel, the LORD our G-d is one LORD." . Here in Deuteronomium 6:4 too, the word "the LORD" stands for Y-H-W-H in the Hebrew text. When we insert G-d's name into this translation, we get; "Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H our G-d is one Y-H-W-H." This is not a correct translation, the correct translation is as above mentioned; "Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H is our G-d, Y-H-W-H is one."
The fact that G-d is one is so important that G-d commands this to be in the heart. It must be diligently taught to the children, the Jews must talk about it when they sit in their houses, when they walk upon the way, when they lie down and when they rise up. They must bind it as a sign upon their arm, and it must be frontlets between their eyes, and they must write it upon the doorposts of their houses and upon their gates. See Deuteronomy 6:4-9 --
The Jews until this day do this. Every morning they put upon their arm and upon their forehead their phylacteries, (prayer belts) that consist of black straps with black leather cubes, that contain parchment upon which is written this Biblical text that says that G-d is one. Upon the doorposts of the houses of the religious Jews there are small boxes or containers that also contain parchment upon which is written that G-d is one.

So for the Jewish people there is one G-d, and that one G-d is one.

One means one. That is not two, not three, not three in one, not two in one, but.ONE.
And then a Jew stands up and claims that he is the messiah, the redeemer that is announced by the prophets. But he did not do what he was supposed to do, set the Jews free from their oppressors, the Romans, and establish an era of peace and tranquility for the Jewish people and all mankind. Instead he was killed, and all that is left of him is a collection of writings, called the New Testament. For the Jewish people, the Old Testament is the established word of G-d. Therefore, everything written in the New Testament must comply with the Old Testament, and not the other way around. The Old Testament can without any problem stand on his own, without the New Testament. The Jewish people have shown this already for more than 3000 years, but the New Testament can not stand on its own without the Old Testament, because it claims to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Look for this fact in the following verses:
Matthew 5:17; "Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."
Luke 4:16-21; "And there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Esaias … and he began to say unto them: This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."

So if the New Testament goes against the Old Testament, it must be rejected as being false.

Now let us take a closer and open-minded look at the New Testament.

1. The reliability of the New Testament

.......Let's start at the beginning, that is the book of Matthew. It starts with a genealogy of Jesus, starting with Abraham and ending with Joseph, Mary's husband, "of who is born Jesus, who is called Christ." Matthew 1:16. It is further stated, in verse 17, that all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the Babylonian exile were 14 generations, and from the exile to Christ were 14 generations. Here already we stumble upon a major problem; in the Holy book of Chronicles, I Chr. 3:10-24, the genealogy of the family of Solomon is given, and in the book of Chronicles there are 18 generations between King David and the Babylonian exile, and not 14.
Hebrew Bible ----------------- New Testament
I Chr. 3:10-16 -------------------Matthew 1:6-11
Solomon -------------------------Solomon
Rehoboam ----------------------Roboam
Abia -------------------------------Abia
Asa --------------------------------Asa
Jehoshaphat --------------------Josaphat
Joram ----------------------------Joram
Ahazia ---------------------------- ?
Joash -----------------------------.?
Amazia --------------------------- ?
Azaria ----------------------------Ozias
Jotham ---------------------------Joatham
Ahaz ------------------------------Achaz
Hezekia --------------------------Ezekias
Manasseh -----------------------Manasses
Amon -----------------------------Amon
Josia ------------------------------Josias
Jehoiakim ----------------------- ?
Jeconia ---------------------------Jechonias
In the genealogy in the Book of Matthew we are missing four names that are clearly listed in the Hebrew Bible. So according to the Holy Old Testament there are 18 generations between King David and the Babylonian exile, whereas the New Testament claims that there are 14.
If the New Testament is the divinely inspired word of G-d, then how can such a mistake appear in it?
In this context it is also interesting to look at the book of Luke, chapter 3, from verse 23. Here Luke also gives the genealogy of Jesus, but a brief reading is enough to show you that this genealogy is completely different from Matthew's genealogy. In the book of Matthew the father of Joseph is Jacob, whose father is Matthan, whose father is Eleazar. In the book of Luke the father of Joseph is Heli, whose father is Matthat, whose father is Levi.

How can this be?...... Was Mary married to two Josephs?

Things like this constitute a grave problem for somebody who looks objectively and open-mindedly to the New Testament.
Some say that Luke gives the genealogy of Jesus through his mother Mary. But this makes no sense, because it is clearly written in Luke 3:23; "And Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, who was the son of ..." It clearly gives the genealogy of Joseph. The name Mary is not even mentioned in this chapter.
So the New Testament not only contradicts the Old Testament, but it also contradicts itself. Since we have two different genealogies, at least one must be wrong. These difficulties were already recognized in the time of Paul. Therefore he wrote to Titus: "But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain." Titus 3:9. See also I Timothy 1:3-4.

But avoiding the problem does not make it go away.

The facts are that here already are big mistakes in the gospels.

In Matthew 1:18 we read: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise; When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy ghost." When Joseph wanted to leave her, because she was pregnant with somebody else, an angel came to him (verse 20) and said: "That what is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." It is clearly written here, and firmly believed by Christianity, that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. Then what is the point of trying to prove that Jesus descended from King David (Matthew 1:1) by giving the genealogy of Joseph who was not his father?
The angel tells Joseph (Matthew 1:22-23) that this is done in order to fulfill the word of the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel." This prophecy is recorded in Isaiah 7:14. There it says: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bare a son and shall call his name Emmanuel." But for the Jewish reader who knows Hebrew, this also raises problems. The Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 that the king James translation translates as virgin is almah. In Hebrew almah means girl, young woman, that can be, or not, a virgin. Therefore the word virgin in Isaiah 7:14 is a wrong translation. The Hebrew word for virgin is betulah, that word is used for instance when the Holy Torah speaks about Rebecca in Genesis 24:16: "…a virgin, neither had any man known her."
This fact is recognized by many Christian Bible translators, for instance "The New English Bible", "The Good News Bible", and "The Revised Standard Version" have translated this verse in the right way, and not as virgin. .
The King James translation recognizes this fact too. When we look for instance at Exodus 2:8, and at Proverbs 30:19, there the Hebrew text also uses the word almah, and there the King James translates it with maid, which is a girl or young woman, whose state of virginity is unspecified. And in psalm 68:25 the King James translates almah as damsel, whose meaning is similar as maid.

So the New Testament is here misquoting the Old Testament.

Nowhere in the Old Testament is there a prophecy that the messiah will be born unto a virgin.... In fact, nowhere in the Old Testament do virgins give birth. This concept is only to be found in pagan mythology.
The angel goes on quoting the prophet Isaiah saying: "And they shall call his name Immanuel". But this is not what is written in Isaiah 7:14; there it clearly says in the Hebrew and in the King James translation, that she, the mother, shall call his name Immanuel. This prophecy is never fulfilled in Jesus, he is never named Immanuel, instead his name was Jesus. This verse also cannot apply to Jesus because it says in verse 16: "For before the child shall know to refuse evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of their kings." It says here that there will be a time period that the child will not be able to refuse the evil. And since Jesus is, according to Christianity, without any sins, this verse cannot apply to him. ... And when we look at this verse in the right context, when we look at the whole chapter of Isaiah 7, then we see that this verse is definitely not referring to the coming of the messiah. This chapter talks about G-d giving a sign to Achaz, that he will have tranquility in his days. We see from these two things: the whole chapter speaks about the days of Achaz, about 700 years before Jesus; verse 14: "Therefore the LORD himself shall give you (King Achaz and his house)a sign." G-d would not give him a sign by having a baby born 700 years after his death. The second thing that we see is that the baby that is talked about is only a sign, not a redeemer. G-d is the redeemer, as it is written in verse 17: "The LORD shall bring upon thee…"
But quoting prophecies or conveying happenings from the Old Testament is not really the strong side of the New Testament. Look for instance at the book of Acts chapter 7. Here Stephen is arrested and led before the high court, accused of blasphemy. He speaks there about G-d calling Abraham. Acts 7:4 says: "He dwelt in Charran, and from there, when his father was dead, He removed him into this land wherein you now dwell." Here it clearly says that Abraham left Charran after the death of his father. Who was his father? See Genesis 11:26: "And Terah lived 70 years and he begot Abram, Nahor and Haran."....--So Abraham's father was Terah, who was 70 years when he begot Abraham.-Genesis 12:4: "And Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran." At this time, when Abraham departed from Haran, his father was 70+75=145 years old. And how long did his father live? Genesis 11:32: "And the days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran."..
When Abraham left Haran his father was 145 years old. His father lived to be 205 years old. That means that after Abraham left Haran, his father lived another 60 years. (205-145)

So how can Stephen say that Abraham left Haran after the death of his father?

In the same chapter it is written, Acts 7:14; "Then send Joseph and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls." Now look what the Holy book of Genesis says about this event. Genesis 46:27; "All the souls of the house of Jacob that came into Egypt were threescore and ten souls." So the Torah says that 70 people of Jacobs' household left for Egypt, and Stephen says 75. How can this be?
In verses 15 and 16 of Acts 7 Stephen says; "So Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid into the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem."
-----...This verse contains multiple mistakes.
Jacob was not buried in Schem, he was buried in the cave of the field of Machpela at Mamre. Genesis 49:33; "And when Jacob had made an end to commanding his sons he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people."
Genesis 50:13; "For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpela which Abraham bought with the field for a possession for a burying place of Ephron the Hittite before Mamre."
So we see that Abraham did not buy a tomb in Schem, but in Mamre, which is Hebron, (Genesis 23:19) and there was Jacob buried, and not in Schem. .....There was in fact a burial place in Schem, but it was bought not by Abraham, but by Jacob, and not Jacob, but Joseph was buried there. See Joshua 24:32: "And the bones of Joseph which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground that Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver."
About Stephen it is written (Acts 6:5), that he was full of the Holy Ghost, and that they were not able to resist the spirit and wisdom by which he spoke. (verse 10)
What kind of wisdom is this, making mistake after mistake after mistake, all these misquotations?

Can somebody who is full of the Holy Ghost make so many mistakes?

What does this say about the reliability of the New Testament?

And what about the leading figure of the New Testament, Jesus, how reliable are his statements? Look at a statement by him from Mark 2:26. Here he says that David entered the Temple (Tabernacle) in the days of Abiathar the high priest and ate the showbreads. This event is recorded in I Samuel 21:1; "Then came David to Nob, to Achimelech the priest,” During this incident Achimelech was high priest, and not his son Abiathar. A high priest functions until the day he dies, and then his son takes over. So only after the death of Achimelech, recorded in I Samuel 22:18, did his son Abiathar succeed him, as we can see in I Samuel 30:7; "And David said to Abiathar the priest, Achimelech's son, …"
Let us take a look at an other of Jesus' statements, from Matthew 23:35: "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of the righteous Able unto the blood of Zacherias son of Berachias, whom you slaughtered between the Temple and the altar." This event is recorded in II Chronicles 24:20-21; "And the spirit of G-d came upon Zacheriah son of Jehoiada the priest which stood above the people, and said to them … And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones, at the commandment of the King, in the house of the LORD.”.
Here we see that the Zacherias who was slaughtered between the Temple and the altar was the son of Jehoiada, and not the son of Berachia, as stated by Jesus. Jesus was mixing up two things: There was a prophet Zacherias son of Berachias, but he was not the one who was slain (II Chronicles 24:22) in the Temple courtyard. Zacherias son of Berachias was the prophet who gave us the Bible book Zacheriah. Look in Zacheriah 1:1; "In the eight month in the second year of Darius came the word of the LORD(Y-H-W-H)to Zecheriah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo the prophet…" This Zecheriah lived after the destruction of the first Temple, during the rebuilding of the second Temple. The killing of Zacherias son of Jehoiada in the Temple courtyard happened in the first Temple period, long before Zecheriah son of Berechiah. In case that in your Bible translation Zacheriah 1:1 says "Zecheriah, son of Iddo the prophet, …" then be assured of the fact that the Hebrew text says; "Zecheriah, son of Berachiah, son of Iddo the prophet, …" In some Bible translations is the text corrupted in order to cover up this mistake of Jesus.
So from this we see that even the words of Jesus are not reliable.
How can it be that the "son of G-d", according to Christianity G-d himself, makes such elementary mistakes?
To a Jewish reader this indicates that the people from the New Testament just did not know their Bible.
For a Jew this is enough to disqualify the whole New Testament.
The arguments; "O.K, the New Testament is not reliable, but the Old Testament, which is much older, is also not reliable", or the argument; "The Jews changed the Old Testament after the rise of Christianity, in order to discredit Christianity" are not valid. The Torah, the most Holy part of the Hebrew Bible, is transmitted through the ages, over a time period of 3300 years with an astonishing degree of accuracy. There are very many rules that apply to the copying process of Torah scrolls: They may only be written on parchment of kosher animals, which must be sewn together with tendons of kosher animals. It may only be written by a Jew, dressed in a Jewish garment, in a state of ritual purity, which means that, amongst other things, he must wash himself in a ritual bath. Even his state of mind is subjected to certain rulings. The whole manuscript must be ruled before it is written upon, when three words are written without ruling; the whole manuscript is disqualified and must be buried. The ink may only be black, prepared according to an ancient recipe. The Torah scroll may only be copied from another authentic scroll, and absolutely no deviation is allowed. Absolutely no words may be written without first looking to the example. The length of each column must be between 48 and 60 rules, and the width must be 30 letters. Between the letters must be a space as wide as a hair, between the paragraphs a space of nine letters, between the books a space of three rules. Calculations have been made how many letters there are in the whole Torah, which letter is the middle, how many letters there are in every book of the Torah, how many times certain words and even letters appear in the text. And there are many, many more rules for copying Torah scrolls that are still in effect, up to this day. No other religion had such an extremely precise way of copying their holy texts. This shows the enormous respect that the Jewish people have for the sacred text, and this is the reason that the text is handed down through the millennia with an extreme grade of accuracy. .Every expert, and everybody knowledgeable in the field of Biblical texts, agrees upon the fact that the Old Testament, even though much older than the New Testament, is handed down much more accurate than the New Testament.
The Old Testament could not be changed after the arising of Christianity, because it was already widely known to the non-Jewish world. Alexander the Great founded in 332 before the Common Era (B.C.E.) the city Alexandria. The Jews had there from the beginning a prominent place, and at one point there were living there one million Jews. The main language there was Greek; therefore a Greek translation of the Old Testament was made for the Jews there, known as the Septuagint. Septuagint means seventy. It points to the 72 translators, six of every tribe of Israel, who made this translation, which was finished about 250 B.C.E. One copy of the Septuagint was kept in the library of Alexandria.
When the Jewish people were exiled to Babylon, the land was filled with pagan tribes. They mixed with the remnant of the Jews, and started to take over large parts of the Jewish religion, and they accepted the Torah. A Jewish priest was sent from Babylon in order to teach those pagan tribes, now living in Samaria, how to live according G-d's commandments. (II Kings 17:24-29) When the Jews came back from the Babylonian exile, these Samaritans wanted to join the Jewish people, but they were rejected because they were still involved in idol worship. This caused a great deal of animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Samaritans even obstructed the rebuilding of the second Temple. (Ezra 4) The Samaritans remained a sect separated from the Jewish people and their entire Bible consists of the first five books, the Torah. These events took place about 350 B.C.E. The Samaritans are still around today as a small sect in Israel.
The Samaritan Torah and the Septuagint were not subjected to such a very precise copying process as the Jewish Torah. But nevertheless, when we compare the Old Testament to the Septuagint, and the Jewish Torah to the Samaritan Torah, then we see that in most places were Stephen and Jesus made serious mistakes, these texts agree with the Jewish Bible. Therefore, even the Greek Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church of Greek rite, who up to this day have the Septuagint as their official text of the Old Testament, are faced with serious problems.
Even the name "New Testament" is not correct: It points to the new covenant that G-d will make with the Jewish people. Paul claims that this is done through Jesus. Paul says in Hebrews 10:15-17; "Whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us, for after he had said before: This is the covenant that I will make with them, after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My laws in their heart and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." This is written in Jeremiah 31:31-34; "Behold, the days come saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according the old covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, although I was as a husband to them, saith the LORD. But this shall be the covenant that I make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in there inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be there G-d, and they shall be my people. And they shall no more each man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: Know the LORD, for they shall all know me, from the least of them till the greatest, saith the LORD, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more."
Are we now in the days that everybody knows about the LORD (Y-H-W-H)?That nobody has to teach his neighbor about G-d?
Obviously not!
So even the reference to the new covenant, the "New Testament", is not correct.

[JWayne]

Joesph, you must provide a link for for all copy & paste material. If it is your work then you must sign it as so.

[Carico]

First of all, the genealogies were not supposed to show every father because all the authors of the gospel had to do was look up the fathers in the OT that were missing in their genealogy as you did. That would have been easy to do. So that was not their meaning. If you notice, there were 14 generations described on both sides, likely because each was twice the number 7 which represents completion in the bible.

Secondly, the whole OT prophesies a man like Jesus, not an earthly messiah who is mortal. The OT explains that David's kingdom will last forever. That implies immortality from a heavenly messiah , not an earthly messiah that the Jews are still looking for. The Jews have always chosen men that are the opposite of whom God chooses, which has demonstrated their unbelief of God. The Jews choose whom they consider to be strong and superior to others, like Saul and we all know what happened to him. God chose the weak things of the world like David to show His power through that individual. So it's natural that the Jews wouldn't recognize the messiah that God had in mind.

Isaiah 53 describes Jesus perfectly. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering."

Yet the Jews are looking for a messiah who will not be despised by them. So that's one small example of the fact that the Jews do not believe the OT which is precisely why God is punishing them and has been since Christ's death. Most of the OT explains God's anger at the unbelief of the Jews.

The whole OT, explains that God will scatter you to all nations and make the nations abhor the Jews because they did not believe God. And he has done that which is so apparent there is even a name for it; "anti-Semitism." He told you in Zecharaiah he would send you no more prophets. And he hasn't after you rejected the messiah.

So it's no surprise that the Jews have been exiled from Jerusalem and scattered around the earth without a prophet for over 2,000 years. God has not made his presence known to you in over 2,000 years. That should be a clue to you that he is blinding the your eyes to Jesus as the messiah as Isaiah 6:10 expains:

"Make the heart of this people calloused, make their eyes dull, Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."

And God has done that since he has abandoned you, even during the Holocaust. But He will open your eyes before the end because you are God's chosen people as Ezekiel 36-38 explains. So he's bringing you back to Israel where every nation will go against you (for no reason) and God will show his power by defeating them by natural disasters. Then he will restore your kingdom and open your eyes to our Lord Jesus Christ.

[theophilus]

The explanation for the two genealogies is that the one in Luke is that of Mary and Joseph is actually the son-in-law of Heli. Luke's account is told entirely from Mary's point of view so it seems that to be consistent he should give her genealogy rather than Joseph's.

This article

http://www.carm.org/bible-difficulti...w-1-and-luke-3

explains this in more detail.

[richardP]

It is more efficient to provide a link to an article instead of quoting it verbatim here. Its also less exhausting for the reader.
So let me ask you souldoctor.....what was your point?

You start out by saying that your remarks have a Jewish spin because Jesus is a Jew. You end by saying that the NT isn't anything of the sort and refute Jesus' words to support your argument.

Are you saying that the NT is BS or are you saying that Jesus and all Jews are liars?
Help me out on this. Your remarks are confusing.

[Nonsequitur]

Originally Posted by Souldoctor

I am new to the Forum here. My name is Joseph , and I'm from NC, near Ft. Bragg. I was a Christian in my youth and recently when my father passed I dove into serious studies from 2002 to 2009.

I am not Jewish, but it is necessary to present a Jewish standpoint because Jesus was a Jew also.

I have a lot of ground to cover, and the reason I'm posting this, since I have no specific religion "myself" any longer, is in hope to get commentary that agrees or disagrees with certain things so I can include them in my studies.

My entire family is Christian, except for 1 who is Jewish, and myself, which I claim no demonation currently. For now, I believe in God, and it stops there until I learn more about defining the path I wish to go. My own path is fine for me right now.

My study started when my father died, he was Christian, but wore a Star David around his neck. So I asked my Step Mother " why" ? and she said just because it looked nice. So it had no significant meaning.

However, I started thinking, why if Jesus was a Jew, the Jews do not accept he was the "One" ???

That is the single basis of my discussion. WHY

So in order to learn why, I have to share viewpoints from the Jewish point of view. After all, Christianity was built on Judiaism, but Judiaism is the Oldest religion in the world, as far as I know.

The bulk of this first thread and others to come is taken from material by Eliyahu Silver which discusses the things they looked at in Christianity, from a "Jewish" standpoint.

When I first read some of these things, I was a bit taken back, because it went against many things I thought I knew or understood. However, let me get on with the view points, and hopefully, after all the things are presented, I can address some things, and offer my own deeper opinion.
I also hope others here will find great interest in these topics. Its a great study, but it does require WORK.

All I want is the simple TRUTH, obtaining simple truths though can be very difficult. It shouldnt be, but it is.

I will now begin sharing the basic portions, and remember, these "initial" views are taken from a Jewish stance. Jesus was a Jew, and God also said that the Jews are Gods Chosen People. So yes, Houston We Have A Problem. Because Jews believe in One God, not 3 in One, and they do not believe Jesus was God, a Messiah, or a Prophet. Christians Believe in Trinity, and Jesus was the Son Of God, And the Second Coming Jesus will right the world, the way Jews believe a Messiah will.

So the question is WHY

"Why Dont The Jewish People Recognize The New Testament"
content by E.Silver & Y. Goldstein

Introduction

For almost 2000 years the Jewish people have not recognized the New Testament, although all those who contributed to the New Testament were Jewish. All the writers of the New Testament were Jewish, but nevertheless the Jewish people reject that which 1,000,000,000 people consider to be the word of G-d.
What is it that the Jews see in the New Testament that is apparently not seen by all the Christians?
The Jews look at the New Testament from an Old Testament viewpoint. About 3300 years ago G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish people. Millions of people watched this event when G-d spoke from Mount Sinai to the Jewish people. There G-d gave to the Jewish people the Holy Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This does not only contain the Ten Commandments, but it contains a total of 613 commandments that G-d commanded the Jewish people to fulfill.

The Torah is the most holy part of the Hebrew Bible.

Torah teaches that there is one G-d, Y-H-W-H, who is a jealous G-d, who allows no other gods beside Him. See Exodus 20:3. G-d's name, Y-H-W-H, appears almost 7000 times in the Old Testament. The King James translation translates this name as "The LORD", with small capital letters. This G-d is the one and only G-d for the Jews, as it is written in the Hebrew Bible;
"Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD, he is G-d in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there is no other." Deuteronomy 4:39
"See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me." Deuteronomy.32:39
"I am He, before Me no god was created, neither shall there be after Me." Isaiah 43:10
"Thus saith the LORD, the King of Israel and his redeemer, the LORD of hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and beside Me there is no god." Isaiah 44:6
"I am the LORD, and there is none else." Isaiah 45:18
This Jewish G-d is one, as it is written; "Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H is our G-d, .Y-H-W-H is one." Deuteronomy 6:4 The King James translation translates this as: "Hear Israel, the LORD our G-d is one LORD." . Here in Deuteronomium 6:4 too, the word "the LORD" stands for Y-H-W-H in the Hebrew text. When we insert G-d's name into this translation, we get; "Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H our G-d is one Y-H-W-H." This is not a correct translation, the correct translation is as above mentioned; "Hear Israel, Y-H-W-H is our G-d, Y-H-W-H is one."
The fact that G-d is one is so important that G-d commands this to be in the heart. It must be diligently taught to the children, the Jews must talk about it when they sit in their houses, when they walk upon the way, when they lie down and when they rise up. They must bind it as a sign upon their arm, and it must be frontlets between their eyes, and they must write it upon the doorposts of their houses and upon their gates. See Deuteronomy 6:4-9 --
The Jews until this day do this. Every morning they put upon their arm and upon their forehead their phylacteries, (prayer belts) that consist of black straps with black leather cubes, that contain parchment upon which is written this Biblical text that says that G-d is one. Upon the doorposts of the houses of the religious Jews there are small boxes or containers that also contain parchment upon which is written that G-d is one.

So for the Jewish people there is one G-d, and that one G-d is one.

One means one. That is not two, not three, not three in one, not two in one, but.ONE.
And then a Jew stands up and claims that he is the messiah, the redeemer that is announced by the prophets. But he did not do what he was supposed to do, set the Jews free from their oppressors, the Romans, and establish an era of peace and tranquility for the Jewish people and all mankind. Instead he was killed, and all that is left of him is a collection of writings, called the New Testament. For the Jewish people, the Old Testament is the established word of G-d. Therefore, everything written in the New Testament must comply with the Old Testament, and not the other way around. The Old Testament can without any problem stand on his own, without the New Testament. The Jewish people have shown this already for more than 3000 years, but the New Testament can not stand on its own without the Old Testament, because it claims to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Look for this fact in the following verses:
Matthew 5:17; "Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."
Luke 4:16-21; "And there was delivered to him the book of the prophet Esaias … and he began to say unto them: This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."

So if the New Testament goes against the Old Testament, it must be rejected as being false.

Now let us take a closer and open-minded look at the New Testament.

1. The reliability of the New Testament

.......Let's start at the beginning, that is the book of Matthew. It starts with a genealogy of Jesus, starting with Abraham and ending with Joseph, Mary's husband, "of who is born Jesus, who is called Christ." Matthew 1:16. It is further stated, in verse 17, that all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the Babylonian exile were 14 generations, and from the exile to Christ were 14 generations. Here already we stumble upon a major problem; in the Holy book of Chronicles, I Chr. 3:10-24, the genealogy of the family of Solomon is given, and in the book of Chronicles there are 18 generations between King David and the Babylonian exile, and not 14.
Hebrew Bible ----------------- New Testament
I Chr. 3:10-16 -------------------Matthew 1:6-11
Solomon -------------------------Solomon
Rehoboam ----------------------Roboam
Abia -------------------------------Abia
Asa --------------------------------Asa
Jehoshaphat --------------------Josaphat
Joram ----------------------------Joram
Ahazia ---------------------------- ?
Joash -----------------------------.?
Amazia --------------------------- ?
Azaria ----------------------------Ozias
Jotham ---------------------------Joatham
Ahaz ------------------------------Achaz
Hezekia --------------------------Ezekias
Manasseh -----------------------Manasses
Amon -----------------------------Amon
Josia ------------------------------Josias
Jehoiakim ----------------------- ?
Jeconia ---------------------------Jechonias
In the genealogy in the Book of Matthew we are missing four names that are clearly listed in the Hebrew Bible. So according to the Holy Old Testament there are 18 generations between King David and the Babylonian exile, whereas the New Testament claims that there are 14.
If the New Testament is the divinely inspired word of G-d, then how can such a mistake appear in it?
In this context it is also interesting to look at the book of Luke, chapter 3, from verse 23. Here Luke also gives the genealogy of Jesus, but a brief reading is enough to show you that this genealogy is completely different from Matthew's genealogy. In the book of Matthew the father of Joseph is Jacob, whose father is Matthan, whose father is Eleazar. In the book of Luke the father of Joseph is Heli, whose father is Matthat, whose father is Levi.

How can this be?...... Was Mary married to two Josephs?

Things like this constitute a grave problem for somebody who looks objectively and open-mindedly to the New Testament.
Some say that Luke gives the genealogy of Jesus through his mother Mary. But this makes no sense, because it is clearly written in Luke 3:23; "And Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, who was the son of ..." It clearly gives the genealogy of Joseph. The name Mary is not even mentioned in this chapter.
So the New Testament not only contradicts the Old Testament, but it also contradicts itself. Since we have two different genealogies, at least one must be wrong. These difficulties were already recognized in the time of Paul. Therefore he wrote to Titus: "But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain." Titus 3:9. See also I Timothy 1:3-4.

But avoiding the problem does not make it go away.


The facts are that here already are big mistakes in the gospels.

In Matthew 1:18 we read: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise; When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy ghost." When Joseph wanted to leave her, because she was pregnant with somebody else, an angel came to him (verse 20) and said: "That what is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." It is clearly written here, and firmly believed by Christianity, that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. Then what is the point of trying to prove that Jesus descended from King David (Matthew 1:1) by giving the genealogy of Joseph who was not his father?
The angel tells Joseph (Matthew 1:22-23) that this is done in order to fulfill the word of the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel." This prophecy is recorded in Isaiah 7:14. There it says: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bare a son and shall call his name Emmanuel." But for the Jewish reader who knows Hebrew, this also raises problems. The Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 that the king James translation translates as virgin is almah. In Hebrew almah means girl, young woman, that can be, or not, a virgin. Therefore the word virgin in Isaiah 7:14 is a wrong translation. The Hebrew word for virgin is betulah, that word is used for instance when the Holy Torah speaks about Rebecca in Genesis 24:16: "…a virgin, neither had any man known her."
This fact is recognized by many Christian Bible translators, for instance "The New English Bible", "The Good News Bible", and "The Revised Standard Version" have translated this verse in the right way, and not as virgin. .
The King James translation recognizes this fact too. When we look for instance at Exodus 2:8, and at Proverbs 30:19, there the Hebrew text also uses the word almah, and there the King James translates it with maid, which is a girl or young woman, whose state of virginity is unspecified. And in psalm 68:25 the King James translates almah as damsel, whose meaning is similar as maid.

So the New Testament is here misquoting the Old Testament.

Nowhere in the Old Testament is there a prophecy that the messiah will be born unto a virgin.... In fact, nowhere in the Old Testament do virgins give birth. This concept is only to be found in pagan mythology.
The angel goes on quoting the prophet Isaiah saying: "And they shall call his name Immanuel". But this is not what is written in Isaiah 7:14; there it clearly says in the Hebrew and in the King James translation, that she, the mother, shall call his name Immanuel. This prophecy is never fulfilled in Jesus, he is never named Immanuel, instead his name was Jesus. This verse also cannot apply to Jesus because it says in verse 16: "For before the child shall know to refuse evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of their kings." It says here that there will be a time period that the child will not be able to refuse the evil. And since Jesus is, according to Christianity, without any sins, this verse cannot apply to him. ... And when we look at this verse in the right context, when we look at the whole chapter of Isaiah 7, then we see that this verse is definitely not referring to the coming of the messiah. This chapter talks about G-d giving a sign to Achaz, that he will have tranquility in his days. We see from these two things: the whole chapter speaks about the days of Achaz, about 700 years before Jesus; verse 14: "Therefore the LORD himself shall give you (King Achaz and his house)a sign." G-d would not give him a sign by having a baby born 700 years after his death. The second thing that we see is that the baby that is talked about is only a sign, not a redeemer. G-d is the redeemer, as it is written in verse 17: "The LORD shall bring upon thee…"
But quoting prophecies or conveying happenings from the Old Testament is not really the strong side of the New Testament. Look for instance at the book of Acts chapter 7. Here Stephen is arrested and led before the high court, accused of blasphemy. He speaks there about G-d calling Abraham. Acts 7:4 says: "He dwelt in Charran, and from there, when his father was dead, He removed him into this land wherein you now dwell." Here it clearly says that Abraham left Charran after the death of his father. Who was his father? See Genesis 11:26: "And Terah lived 70 years and he begot Abram, Nahor and Haran."....--So Abraham's father was Terah, who was 70 years when he begot Abraham.-Genesis 12:4: "And Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran." At this time, when Abraham departed from Haran, his father was 70+75=145 years old. And how long did his father live? Genesis 11:32: "And the days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran."..
When Abraham left Haran his father was 145 years old. His father lived to be 205 years old. That means that after Abraham left Haran, his father lived another 60 years. (205-145)

So how can Stephen say that Abraham left Haran after the death of his father?

In the same chapter it is written, Acts 7:14; "Then send Joseph and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls." Now look what the Holy book of Genesis says about this event. Genesis 46:27; "All the souls of the house of Jacob that came into Egypt were threescore and ten souls." So the Torah says that 70 people of Jacobs' household left for Egypt, and Stephen says 75. How can this be?
In verses 15 and 16 of Acts 7 Stephen says; "So Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid into the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem."
-----...This verse contains multiple mistakes.
Jacob was not buried in Schem, he was buried in the cave of the field of Machpela at Mamre. Genesis 49:33; "And when Jacob had made an end to commanding his sons he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people."
Genesis 50:13; "For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpela which Abraham bought with the field for a possession for a burying place of Ephron the Hittite before Mamre."
So we see that Abraham did not buy a tomb in Schem, but in Mamre, which is Hebron, (Genesis 23:19) and there was Jacob buried, and not in Schem. .....There was in fact a burial place in Schem, but it was bought not by Abraham, but by Jacob, and not Jacob, but Joseph was buried there. See Joshua 24:32: "And the bones of Joseph which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground that Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver."
About Stephen it is written (Acts 6:5), that he was full of the Holy Ghost, and that they were not able to resist the spirit and wisdom by which he spoke. (verse 10)
What kind of wisdom is this, making mistake after mistake after mistake, all these misquotations?

Can somebody who is full of the Holy Ghost make so many mistakes?


What does this say about the reliability of the New Testament?

And what about the leading figure of the New Testament, Jesus, how reliable are his statements? Look at a statement by him from Mark 2:26. Here he says that David entered the Temple (Tabernacle) in the days of Abiathar the high priest and ate the showbreads. This event is recorded in I Samuel 21:1; "Then came David to Nob, to Achimelech the priest,” During this incident Achimelech was high priest, and not his son Abiathar. A high priest functions until the day he dies, and then his son takes over. So only after the death of Achimelech, recorded in I Samuel 22:18, did his son Abiathar succeed him, as we can see in I Samuel 30:7; "And David said to Abiathar the priest, Achimelech's son, …"
Let us take a look at an other of Jesus' statements, from Matthew 23:35: "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of the righteous Able unto the blood of Zacherias son of Berachias, whom you slaughtered between the Temple and the altar." This event is recorded in II Chronicles 24:20-21; "And the spirit of G-d came upon Zacheriah son of Jehoiada the priest which stood above the people, and said to them … And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones, at the commandment of the King, in the house of the LORD.”.
Here we see that the Zacherias who was slaughtered between the Temple and the altar was the son of Jehoiada, and not the son of Berachia, as stated by Jesus. Jesus was mixing up two things: There was a prophet Zacherias son of Berachias, but he was not the one who was slain (II Chronicles 24:22) in the Temple courtyard. Zacherias son of Berachias was the prophet who gave us the Bible book Zacheriah. Look in Zacheriah 1:1; "In the eight month in the second year of Darius came the word of the LORD(Y-H-W-H)to Zecheriah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo the prophet…" This Zecheriah lived after the destruction of the first Temple, during the rebuilding of the second Temple. The killing of Zacherias son of Jehoiada in the Temple courtyard happened in the first Temple period, long before Zecheriah son of Berechiah. In case that in your Bible translation Zacheriah 1:1 says "Zecheriah, son of Iddo the prophet, …" then be assured of the fact that the Hebrew text says; "Zecheriah, son of Berachiah, son of Iddo the prophet, …" In some Bible translations is the text corrupted in order to cover up this mistake of Jesus.
So from this we see that even the words of Jesus are not reliable.
How can it be that the "son of G-d", according to Christianity G-d himself, makes such elementary mistakes?
To a Jewish reader this indicates that the people from the New Testament just did not know their Bible.
For a Jew this is enough to disqualify the whole New Testament.
The arguments; "O.K, the New Testament is not reliable, but the Old Testament, which is much older, is also not reliable", or the argument; "The Jews changed the Old Testament after the rise of Christianity, in order to discredit Christianity" are not valid. The Torah, the most Holy part of the Hebrew Bible, is transmitted through the ages, over a time period of 3300 years with an astonishing degree of accuracy. There are very many rules that apply to the copying process of Torah scrolls: They may only be written on parchment of kosher animals, which must be sewn together with tendons of kosher animals. It may only be written by a Jew, dressed in a Jewish garment, in a state of ritual purity, which means that, amongst other things, he must wash himself in a ritual bath. Even his state of mind is subjected to certain rulings. The whole manuscript must be ruled before it is written upon, when three words are written without ruling; the whole manuscript is disqualified and must be buried. The ink may only be black, prepared according to an ancient recipe. The Torah scroll may only be copied from another authentic scroll, and absolutely no deviation is allowed. Absolutely no words may be written without first looking to the example. The length of each column must be between 48 and 60 rules, and the width must be 30 letters. Between the letters must be a space as wide as a hair, between the paragraphs a space of nine letters, between the books a space of three rules. Calculations have been made how many letters there are in the whole Torah, which letter is the middle, how many letters there are in every book of the Torah, how many times certain words and even letters appear in the text. And there are many, many more rules for copying Torah scrolls that are still in effect, up to this day. No other religion had such an extremely precise way of copying their holy texts. This shows the enormous respect that the Jewish people have for the sacred text, and this is the reason that the text is handed down through the millennia with an extreme grade of accuracy. .Every expert, and everybody knowledgeable in the field of Biblical texts, agrees upon the fact that the Old Testament, even though much older than the New Testament, is handed down much more accurate than the New Testament.
The Old Testament could not be changed after the arising of Christianity, because it was already widely known to the non-Jewish world. Alexander the Great founded in 332 before the Common Era (B.C.E.) the city Alexandria. The Jews had there from the beginning a prominent place, and at one point there were living there one million Jews. The main language there was Greek; therefore a Greek translation of the Old Testament was made for the Jews there, known as the Septuagint. Septuagint means seventy. It points to the 72 translators, six of every tribe of Israel, who made this translation, which was finished about 250 B.C.E. One copy of the Septuagint was kept in the library of Alexandria.
When the Jewish people were exiled to Babylon, the land was filled with pagan tribes. They mixed with the remnant of the Jews, and started to take over large parts of the Jewish religion, and they accepted the Torah. A Jewish priest was sent from Babylon in order to teach those pagan tribes, now living in Samaria, how to live according G-d's commandments. (II Kings 17:24-29) When the Jews came back from the Babylonian exile, these Samaritans wanted to join the Jewish people, but they were rejected because they were still involved in idol worship. This caused a great deal of animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Samaritans even obstructed the rebuilding of the second Temple. (Ezra 4) The Samaritans remained a sect separated from the Jewish people and their entire Bible consists of the first five books, the Torah. These events took place about 350 B.C.E. The Samaritans are still around today as a small sect in Israel.
The Samaritan Torah and the Septuagint were not subjected to such a very precise copying process as the Jewish Torah. But nevertheless, when we compare the Old Testament to the Septuagint, and the Jewish Torah to the Samaritan Torah, then we see that in most places were Stephen and Jesus made serious mistakes, these texts agree with the Jewish Bible. Therefore, even the Greek Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church of Greek rite, who up to this day have the Septuagint as their official text of the Old Testament, are faced with serious problems.
Even the name "New Testament" is not correct: It points to the new covenant that G-d will make with the Jewish people. Paul claims that this is done through Jesus. Paul says in Hebrews 10:15-17; "Whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us, for after he had said before: This is the covenant that I will make with them, after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My laws in their heart and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." This is written in Jeremiah 31:31-34; "Behold, the days come saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according the old covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, although I was as a husband to them, saith the LORD. But this shall be the covenant that I make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in there inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be there G-d, and they shall be my people. And they shall no more each man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: Know the LORD, for they shall all know me, from the least of them till the greatest, saith the LORD, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more."
Are we now in the days that everybody knows about the LORD (Y-H-W-H)?That nobody has to teach his neighbor about G-d?
Obviously not!
So even the reference to the new covenant, the "New Testament", is not correct.

My answer will be a lot shorter.
Obviously, you do realize that Jesus was a real person.
Obviously, you fail to recognize the more than 200 prophecies in the Old Testamant about Jesus.
But more important.
Given that you acknowledge the existence of the Apostles,
how do you rationalize the deaths of the apostles, who to a man, went to death, confessing that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?
WOW!
They could have said, "Yep, ya'll right, we were just kidding. You caught us. Dang it. Sorry!"
Now that's a better odds given to Saddam or Ben Laden.
Not enough? How about you being one of the twelve, being tortured before death.
Are you, yourself, such a man of deceit, that you would die for a LIE?
Would you know 12 men who would do the same thing?
12 men, under torture, stating Jesus Christ is Lord, came to His world, died for it, and came back to life?
Honor among thieves my *$$.
NO ONE does that under Roman torture.
Oh, but wait.....there were others.......
they died for their testament also. Gee, guess there were more than twelve.
Now the following is satire of course.... but....
It must of been a Jim Jones kind of moment right? Satire ended.
Which of course, explains the deaths of others who He appeared to later.
And of course, Jesus never really existed, leading to the Romans killing as many Christians as they could, culminating years later into the 'Roman-Catholic' religion.
Because as modern people we know, Jesus never really existed,......right?