2nd Corinthians 3 (page 3)

Butters

Why do you associate the fact that JW's are correct about the Trinity being Babylonian with other Christian things? I escaped not only the Watchtower, but all of Christianity when I left. I decided to start worshiping the Father in spirit and truth as Messiah teaches. Imitating GOD as Paul and Messiah teach. I see no need to start "changing" things from the way they were taught by Messiah Yahshua. He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. He taught on the Sabbath, and kept it. That's my point. Christians observe the sun-god day. The early Church fathers are the earliest signs of the falling away that Paul and Peter spoke of. The fact that the Anti-Messiah is he or she that doesn't claim Messiah is a flesh and blood human being shows all the different anti-Messiahs we have today. Witnesses claim he is an angel, or was, and becomes one again, Christians believe that he is God or was or will be again, but true Messianics KNOW that Messiah is David's son. A human from the seed of Abraham. A human King who will inherit the throne of his father David. Messiah is a man (1 Timothy 2:5, Luke 24:37-42) and doesn't change. He is the same today as he was on earth. A human man who can be tempted just as we are. He was tempted just like us. He is simply in another dimension until the Kingdom is established and returns. The Kingdom comes when we SEE HIM with our eyes too. Not that invisible parousia stuff.

Butters

You need to examine Isaiah 7:14 again and compare it with Isaiah 8;3.. Matthew would have written in Hebrew. He was a Tax collector for Herod.

Narkissos

the fact that JW's are correct about the Trinity being Babylonian...

is not a "fact". It's Hislop-like crap. There are better examples of divine triads elsewhere (e.g. Egypt) but it still has little to do with the 4th-century Christian trinity.

I decided to start worshiping the Father in spirit and truth as Messiah teaches. Imitating GOD as Paul and Messiah teach. I see no need to start "changing" things from the way they were taught by Messiah Yahshua. He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. He taught on the Sabbath, and kept it.

Good on you. But how you can enroll Paul, who clearly taught the end of, and freedom from the Law, on such an agenda is beyond me. Moreover, pretty much all of what (you think) you know about Jesus comes from the Gospels which do contain criticism of the Torah (e.g. Mark 7:19 about the dietary laws, which you referred to on another thread). I suppose you'll have to sort the "genuine Jewish Jesus" from the "fake pagan Jesus". Why not, but you are doing the picking and choosing just as anybody else.

Witnesses claim he is an angel, or was, and becomes one again, Christians believe that he is God or was or will be again, but true Messianics KNOW that Messiah is David's son. A human from the seed of Abraham. A human King who will inherit the throne of his father David. Messiah is a man (1 Timothy 2:5, Luke 24:37-42) and doesn't change. He is the same today as he was on earth. A human man who can be tempted just as we are. He was tempted just like us. He is simply in another dimension until the Kingdom is established and returns. The Kingdom comes when we SEE HIM with our eyes too. Not that invisible parousia stuff.

I do agree that some early Jewish Christians shared similar beliefs. But definitely not all. Both Paul's "Son of God" and John's "Son of Man" come from heaven and return where they came from...

Matthew would have written in Hebrew. He was a Tax collector for Herod.

There's a Matthew in the first gospel who is a tax collector, but how do you know he is the author of the Gospel? There is not the least hint in the Gospel itself in that direction. Remember, the titles of the Gospels come from later Christian tradition. The same Christian tradition which you dismiss as "pagan"...

I have no problem with your Jewish-Christian stance, but from that perspective I think you would be better off discarding most of the NT as "pagan" than desperately trying to bend it to your views.

myelaine

dear Butters...

you said: Messiah is a man and doesn't change.

which is why...it is written above my God and Saviour..."THE KING OF THE JEWS"... and about my God and Saviour ... "And He was numbered with the transgressors"... Mark 15:28.

love michelle

Leolaia

Butters....I'm not arguing for any particular theology and I do not believe that there is only one single theology represented in the NT; I am instead pointing out for the sake of historical accuracy that early Christianity embraced the views and practices that you regard as late and foreign. Primitive Christianity included both Sabbath-keepers and those who did not observe it; cf. Ignatius, Magnesians 9:1, referring to those "no longer keeping the Sabbath but living in accord with the Lord's Day (kuriaké)". This is most definitely a technical term for a day of the week on which many (most?) Christians met to observe the Eucharist; cf. Didache 14:1 and Justin Martyr (Apology 1.67) who is very explicit that it is "on the day called Sunday that all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits, and then ... we all rise together and pray and when our prayer is ended bread and wine and water are brought" for observing the Eucharist. Note that this is a different term than the eschatological "Day of the Lord" (hémera (tou) kuriou). Cf. kuriaké in another early term for the Eucharist, kuriaké deipnon "Lord's supper" (1 Corinthians 11:20).

Where did Sunday come into play? It seems that the later Church fathers made it up, all part of their Babylonian Trinity and other false dogma.... He also was not resurrected on a Sunday. ... since Messiah was hung on a High Sabbath, (the day of preparation being before which would be Wednesday) then he rose late on the Sabbath day just as Matthew 28:1 says....

Neither Ignatius, nor the author of the Didache, nor Justin Martyr were "later Church fathers". Your reading of Matthew 28:1 is technically possible with opse meaning "late" (cf. Mark 13:35), e.g. "late on the Sabbath," but a sense "late with respect to the Sabbath," that is, "after the Sabbath" is supposedly more appropriate when it is used prepositionally with a genitive. What makes this reading more of a certainty is the reference to "the growing light on the first day of the week", lit. "first [day] of the Sabbath" (mian sabbatón) which is the traditional term for the day following the Sabbath in Jewish literature (cf. b-'chd b-shbt, "on the first of the Sabbath" in 4QpGen and b. Ta'anit 25a, shbtyk l-shbtyk m-chd "from the first [day] of your Sabbath [prepare] for your Sabbath" in b. Besah 16a, m-'chd b-shbt "from the first day of the Sabbath [set your mind on the next Sabbath]" in the Tosefta, and other examples in Targum Psalms 27:4, Targum Ezekiel 18:10; cf. in Greek the examples of mias tón sabbatón in Psalm 24:1 LXX and Acts 20:7 and mian sabbatou in 1 Corinthians 16:2). This usage is based on the fact that the Sabbath was the last day of the creation week in Genesis 2:2-3, making the day that follows it correspond to the "first day" (compare hémera mia "first day" in Genesis 1:5 LXX; cf. Jubilees 2:1, 17, 25). That this usage was well established can be seen in such terms as deutera sabbatón "second [day] of the Sabbath" for "Monday" and pempe sabbatón "fifth [day] of the Sabbath" for "Thursday" in Didache 8:1, described as the two fast days of the Pharisees, corresponding to the dis tou sabbatou "two [days] of the Sabbath" fasting days mentioned in Luke 18:12.

The notice in Matthew 28:1 also has a parallel in Mark 16:1 in which the same point in time is after "the Sabbath had passed (dia genomenou tou sabbatou)," i.e. the next day. The chronology of the resurrection was understood similarly in Barnabas, as mentioned above, which places the resurrection on the "eighth day," i.e. the day after the Sabbath. Similarly, Justin Martyr (c. 150 AD) wrote that "Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For he was crucified on the day before Saturday; and it was on the day after Saturday, which is the day of the Sun, that he appeared to his apostles and disciples" (Apology 1.67). Although explicit, this formulation follows the earlier statements in the gospels that pin down the events of passion week to the Sabbath (cf. Matthew 28:1, Mark 15:42, 16:1, Luke 23:54-56, John 19:31), such that Jesus was buried late in "the day before the Sabbath" (Mark 15:42), right when "the Sabbath was about to begin" (Luke 23:54), then Jesus lay in the tomb as the women "rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment" (Luke 23:56), then "when the Sabbath was over" (Mark 16:1) "after the Sabbath" (Matthew 28:1), the women arose to anoint the body, with it being the "first [day] of the Sabbath" (Matthew 28:1). All of this corresponds to Justin's representation of this period of time. Another example is the Gospel of Peter which has Joseph of Arimathea requesting the body when "the Sabbath is drawing near" (2:3), he received the body in "the ninth hour" before sunset (6:2-3) after which Jesus was buried, then "at first light on the Sabbath" a crowd of people came to see the sealed tomb (9:1), then "during the night before the Lord's Day" the tomb was opened and the Jesus left it with two angels (9:2-3), and finally "early on the Lord's Day" Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the tomb (12:1).

This is what we find in early sources and there is no alternative chronology, for it is fixed in place by the twin references to "the day before the Sabbath" and the "first day (of the week) ... after the Sabbath" in the synoptic gospels. That is not to say that alternate chronologies did not exist outside of the passion narrative, and the reference to "three days and three nights" in the separate sayings tradition (= Matthew 12:40; cf. meta treis hémeras "after three days" in Mark 9:31) does stand in tension with the passion narrative and may well reflect a separate early tradition. My point is that the conventional chronology of the passion is early and found in the NT and in other affiliated sources, and the explicit chronology in the synoptic passion narrative cannot be converted into a literal "three days and three nights". It is also worth noting that our oldest reference to the timing of the resurrection is in 1 Corinthians 15:4 which makes reference to a resurrection on the té hémera té trité "third day" (cf. trité hémera in Luke 24:46, Acts 10:40), which is not consistent with three full days and nights of burial. The two divergent terms ("on the third day" vs. "after three days") reflect the fact that they rest exegetically on different OT scriptures. The reference to resurrection on the third day "according to the Scriptures" in 1 Corinthians 15:4 rests on the use of anistémi (one of the usual words for resurrection in the NT) in Hosea 6:2 LXX which states that "we shall rise on the third day (en té hémera té trité) after two days (meta duo hémeras)" (cf. the very similar language in 2 Kings 20:5 which states that after the "third day" anabése eis oikon kuriou "you shall ascend to the house of the Lord"). The reference to "three days and three nights" in Matthew 12:40 is explicitly to Jonah 1:17 LXX, which assumes a different length of time than Hosea 6:2 LXX.

The Messiah said that he was Lord of the Sabbath day in Mark 2:28. He said the Sabbath was made for MAN, (not Israel) and that we are to keep it holy and DO GOOD on it.

I can tell you that this is hardly the only possible interpretation of Mark 2:28, especially since it is not clear whether "son of man" is here a christological title; the usual meaning of the phrase in the OT is "human being" (as it is in Aramaic). Note how the thought flows (particularly the logical relation indicated by hóste "hence") when it is understood in this sense: "The sabbath was made for humankind (anthrópon), and not humankind for the sabbath; hence man (huios tou anthrópou) is master of the sabbath". The whole purpose of the pericope is to explain why halakhic Sabbath observance can be relaxed (the situation described in 2:23-24 and 3:1-6) according to one's need, not just by a christological figure like Jesus but also a man like David (cf. 2:25-26). The point of the story is NOT that the Sabbath should be generalized to Gentiles and observed by all, for this was not what the Pharisees were disputing about ... they were questioning why Jesus appeared to them to be breaking the Sabbath. The reply Jesus gives emphasizes that human needs (like hunger) are more important than one's usual Sabbath observance and that one should not die or suffer for it (compare the references to "saving a life" in 3:4, or pulling a child from a well in Luke 13:15). This is exactly parallel to the rabbinic principle of "superseding the Sabbath" (dwchyn 't h-shbt) when life is at stake (cf. b. Shabbat 131a, b. Sukkah 43a, m. Pesah 6:1-2, b. Sanhedrin 74a, m. Yoma 8:6, b. Yoma 85a). It's this principle that is lacking in the Society's own "law on blood," i.e. it is more important to observe a commandment than to save a life. There's a huge literature on the controversy stories in biblical scholarship, btw, that goes into this.

It is also important to recognize that the mild antinomianism of Paul (that the Torah commandments per se have been superseded) and the more robust antinomianism of later writers (that the Torah should not be observed at all) is not characteristic of the Jewish-Christian synoptic tradition (particularly Matthew) at which the Torah remained the center. There was not a single point of view on the matter throughout primitive Christianity, as Acts and Galatians 1-2 make clear; Matthew 5:17-20, 7:21, 23:2-3 emphasize the continued centrality of the Torah and rabbinic halakha, whereas the deutero-Pauline Ephesians 2:15 claims that Jesus nullified "the Law with its commandments and regulations". In Mark 2:27, Jesus affirms that the Sabbath is divinely mandated ("the sabbath was made for humankind"), and the thrust of the controversy stories is HOW the Sabbath should be observed, not WHETHER it should be observed ... and this is the case with Mark and Luke which have Gentile audiences. This point is reinforced in Acts, in which Sabbath observance is frequently mentioned for the early disciples (cf. 13:42-44, 14:1, 18:4, 24-26; compare especially Acts 17:2 with Luke 4:16), just as biweekly fasts are observed in the Didache. At the same time, there is no indication that the Eucharist was held on the Sabbath which is otherwise indicated as practiced on the Lord's Day.

That some Christians observed the Sabbath while others did not is apparent from Romans 14:5: "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike". This is similar to the situation involving food sacrificed to idols, and in both cases Paul emphasized individual conscientiousness to avoid stumbling: "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special does do to the Lord. He who eats meat eats to the Lord ... he who abstains does so to the Lord" (v. 4-5). The view in Galatians 4 is more negative. Paul criticizes the Galatian Christians for asserting the centrality of the Torah ("You who want to be under the Law ... You are observing special days and months and seasons and years," v. 10, 21), for positing Sabbath and festival observance as more than an optional conscience matter (cf. Gospel of Thomas 27:1: "If you do not observe the Sabbath as a Sabbath, you will not see the Father"). Then Colossians 2:13-22 (deutero-Pauline?) asserts even further the nullified status of dietary laws and "festivals, New Moons, and Sabbaths" which formed "the shadow of things that were to come" in Christ, a theme picked up in Ephesians 2:15 and developed further in Ignatius, Barnabas, and other later writers.

The epistle of Barnabas is not scripture.

It was not judged as scripture by Eusebius and the post-Nicene church (whereas it had quasi-scriptural status for Clement of Alexandria, Didymus Caenus, and the compiler of the Codex Sinaiticus), but that is not relevant....it is pertinent as an early witness to Christian practice and beliefs, which is what is being discussed (i.e. whether primitive Christians regarded Sunday as the "Lord's Day").

That writing was assembled in the latter part of the 7th century of our era.

LOL!! That is not the case at all. Barnabas was included in the Codex Sinaiticus edition of the Bible (c. AD 350), copied in a papyrus fragment from around the same time, quoted three times by Origen (cf. Contra Celsum 1.63), and excerpted by Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 200). According to all scholars I've read, the date range for composition is between AD 70 and AD 135. I think you are confusing Barnabas with the "Gospel of Barnabas," a post-Byzantine composition that indeed dates to around the 7th century as it has a polemic against Islam.

Isaiah 7:14 doesn't belong in Matthew. The real true Hebrew Matthew doesn't have that verse.

There is no version I know of that lacks the quotation in Matthew 1:22-23. By "real true Hebrew Matthew," I assume you mean the medieval Shem-Tob version of Matthew 1:23 which does have the verse but alters the verb tenses and omits only the explanatory gloss "which means God with us" after the quotation, i.e. "Behold the young woman is conceiving and will bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel". Not only does the Shem-Tob version quote Isaiah 7:14, but Shem-Tob even complains about its use of verb tenses when compared to the original text in Isaiah. These alterations to Matthew 1:23 moreover are unique to Shem-Tob and are not shared by the Old Syriac, Old Latin, or other known versions with which Shem-Tob is partly related. The omission of the explanatory gloss is explainable since it would have been redundant in Hebrew (in which the meaning of "Immanuel" would have been plain). Aside from Shem-Tob, I know of no other omission in the textual tradition of Matthew 1:23 aside from the minor correction to the Sinaiticus text concerning autou. And while the Shem-Tob version likely rests on a much older Grundscrift, its harmonistic readings and affinities to the Old Syriac, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Pseudo-Clementines suggests a secondary origin of the text, possibly through the Hebrew-language Jewish-Christian gospels known to the Fathers (like the Gospel of the Nazoreans and the Gospel of the Hebrews, which were secondarily derived from the canonical gospels and Matthew in particular), but certainly not as a putative "original" version of Matthew, never mind the significant weight of the evidence pointing to a Greek-language origin of Mathew itself (e.g. dependence on Mark, use of LXX, lack of variation in readings ascribable to translation).

Of course Isaiah 7:14 was directed to King Ahaz and did not have the meaning later assigned to it by the author of Matthew, but this is no more due to foreign intrusion than the misapplication of Jeremiah 31:15 in Matthew 2:18. The text in Isaiah 7:14-17 similarly underlies the language in Luke 1:26-33 in which Mary is termed a parthenos (Luke 1:27 = Isaiah 7:14), Joseph is from oikou Daueid / oikos Dauid "the house of David" (Luke 1:27 = Isaiah 7:13), and Jesus reigns epi ton oikon "over the house" (Luke 1:33 = Isaiah 1:17). The scripture is similarly applied to Jesus in Justin Martyr, Dialogue 43.5, 66.2, Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4.fr. 18.

BTW, there is no reason in Matthew 1:18-25 to regard the references to the Holy Spirit as implying that Jesus was a supernatural pre-human "spirit baby" as you put it, but it does go hand-in-hand with the idea that Mary's pregnancy was miraculous, as God's Spirit is conceived of as the source of life (cf. Genesis 6:3, Job 27:3, 33:4, Psalm 33:6, 104:30, Isaiah 32:15, Jubilees 5:8, John 3:5-6, 6:63, 2 Corinthians 3:6, Revelation 11:11, etc.) and the power producing miracles (cf. Judges 13:25, 14:6, 19, 15:14, Matthew 12:28, Acts 2:4, 1 Corinthians 12:3-13, etc.). The role of the Spirit in the virgin birth of Jesus in Matthew is parallel to its role in Luke with respect to Elizabeth's pregnancy of John the Baptist. This also was a miraculous birth, namely a barren woman becoming pregnant, and like Jesus the unborn John was said to be "filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15), and neither was John regarded in Luke to have had a prehuman existence (this notion, as it pertains to Jesus, was found elsewhere in primitive Christian tradition, particularly in Logos/Wisdom theology).

Ade

Hi Butters,
I would like your answer on this please
"Sorry... You are wrong on this Leolaia. Too much pagan Greek Church stuff and Ex-Watchtower stuff lingering around I think. Try Messianic Judaism out for a change. The real Messiah by the way is Yoseph's son. Not a spirit baby according to some pagan neo-platonism. Isaiah 7:14 doesn't belong in Matthew. The real true Hebrew Matthew doesn't have that verse. Isaiah 7:14 is fulfilled in Isaiah 8:3 anyway.... A sign to Ahaz makes no sense 400+ years before the Messiah is born... It's biblical ballyhoo."

so are you saying to read the NT or not ?? or is it all biblical ballyhoo ?? if so why do you keep quoting Paul ??

This is a serious question and im not meaning to insult you.I just dont quite understand your viewpoint.
i would be happy to read an explanation from your point of view though.

Ade

Butters

The food laws were never done away with in Mark 7. That is a misunderstanding. Messiah was rebuking a HAND WASHING ordinance added to the Torah (this is a dogma)...Dogma is what Paul is referring to as abolished. Not the law, which Messiah clearly said he did not come to destroy (Matthew 5:17-20)...If what Narkosiss says is true, then Messiah was breaking down law when he said he didn't come to do so! He was breaking down traditions of men in Mark 7! Not God's laws... This is proved by the fact that by the time Peter in Acts 10 is told to "Kill and eat" he REJECTS the false idea, and is in the right in doing so! The message was not about food, but PEOPLE... (Acts 10:28)...

Paul still says that there are UNCLEAN things (2nd Corinthians 6:17) which goes along perfectly with Isaiah 65 and 66 which teach of the prophecy of false teachers who claim the law is done, and eat swine.

Shalom

Butters

The NT is great! But people misunderstand PAUL....

Eph 2:15

having abolished in the flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace;

Dogma. Not God's holy and healthy food laws which help us live properly. Yahweh is smart. He gives good laws. Not bad ones. We are not supposed to eat swine. Paul supports this well.

Butters

Leolaia you can try and escape God's laws and good holy commands all you want with your commentaries. You can try and burry the Sabbath under the carpet, but the truth is the Sabbath shadows the coming Kingdom when Messiah will return and rule from David's throne in Jerusalem. That hasn't happened yet. The wolf is not lying down with the lamb, and we are not in the Kingdom. Hebrews 4 tells us to keep the Sabbath day. Paul teaches us to IMITATE GOD. What day did God bless and make holy? What day did Messiah keep holy? I imitate the bible and bible things. It's rather simple and child like. Shalom

myelaine

dear Butters...

maybe you could tell me how I stand then...I haven't been to a church in years and years and I have no day of rest either...always go, go, go...

who would condemn me?

just wondering... (cause I do want to have the right hand of fellowship)

love michelle

2nd Corinthians 3

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