by Perry 114 Replies latest watchtower bible
dear designs...
throughout the OT israel is portrayed as a woman, God's wife. on what basis would a rabbi interpret isaiah 53:5, 8-10 (which is clearly talking about a man) as israel?
the age of peace that the jews are looking for is when their King comes to usher in His kingdom. The salvation of their God. Doesn't that sound familiar to you? It is the second advent that christians are looking for.
love michelle
Ask your local Rabbi about Isaiah, or look it up in Jewish literature. Servant here is the people.
In Judaism the Mashiach or Messiah accomplishes his tasks when he comes not leaving for 2000 years without accomplishing anything.
Paul and the other writers should have just started their new religion without tying their central figure to the Jewish Messiah then they wouldn't be in so much technical trouble and have to explain the obvious untruths in the NT about Judaism.
dear designs...
since you said that the rabbis say that isaiah 53:5,8-10 is israel I thought you could explain why. Do you have any thoughts as to why a consistantly female corporate identity would change to a male singular identity? Do you know on what basis the rabbis chose to interpret these verses this way?
" for the transgression of my people he was punished." does this even make sense if the text is talking about corporate israel?
love michelle
Isaiah 53.
Sorry, I have not time to share in this discussion, but if anyone would like to look at some scholarly discussion on that Ch., you may find the parts of this book helpful. The link is to a google copy, so not all (sometimes not many) pages may be available. But if it interests you, your local library may have a copy or may be able to tell you where you can find a full copy.
Start at the beginning.
Perry, the fact that it comes from the Latin (and late Greek MSS) indicates that it was a later interpolation or text note that was incorporated into the main text. Here's Metzger's Commentary:
5:7–8 μαρτυροῦντες , 8 τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα {A}
After μαρτυροῦντες the Textus Receptus adds the following: ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἔν εἰσι. (8) καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ. That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the following considerations.
(A) External Evidence. (1) The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except eight, and these contain the passage in what appears to be a translation from a late recension of the Latin Vulgate.
(2) The passage is quoted by none of the Greek Fathers, who, had they known it, would most certainly have employed it in the Trinitarian controversies (Sabellian and Arian). Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek version of the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215.
(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a ) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullia n Cypria n Augustin e ), or in the Vulgate ( b ) as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541–46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716]) or ( c ) as revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).
The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4), attributed either to the Spanish heretic Priscillian (died about 385) or to his follower Bishop Instantius. Apparently the gloss arose when the original passage was understood to symbolize the Trinity (through the mention of three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood), an interpretation that may have been written first as a marginal note that afterwards found its way into the text. In the fifth century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in North Africa and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle, and from the sixth century onwards it is found more and more frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of the Vulgate. In these various witnesses the wording of the passage differs in several particulars. (For examples of other intrusions into the Latin text of 1 John, see 2.17; 4.3; 5.6, and 20.)
(B) Internal Probabilities . (1) As regards transcriptional probability, if the passage were original, no good reason can be found to account for its omission, either accidentally or intentionally, by copyists of hundreds of Greek manuscripts, and by translators of ancient versions.
(2) As regards intrinsic probability, the passage makes an awkward break in the sense.
For the story of how the spurious words came to be included in the Textus Receptus, see any critical commentary on 1 John, or Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 101 f.; cf. also Ezra Abbot, “I. John v. 7 and Luther’s German Bible,” in The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and Other Critical Essays (Boston, 1888), pp. 458–463. [1]
{A} {A} The letter {A} signifies that the text is certain.
Tertullian Tertullian (d. after 220)
Metzger The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, by Bruce M. Metzger (Oxford, 1964; 3rd ed., 1992).
cf. confer (compare)
[1] Metzger, B. M., & United Bible Societies. (1994). A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition a companion volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) (647–649). London ; New York : United Bible Societies.
1 Tim. 3:16 follows a similar route. Metzger makes the following conclusion:
Thus, no uncial (in the first hand) earlier than the eighth or ninth century supports θεός; all ancient versions presuppose ὅς or ὅ; and no patristic writer prior to the last third of the fourth century testifies to the reading θεός. The reading θεός arose either (a) accidentally, through the misreading of ος as ΘΣ, or (b) deliberately, either to supply a substantive for the following six verbs, or, with less probability, to provide greater dogmatic precision.[1]
[ 1] Metzger, B. M., & United Bible Societies. (1994). A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition a companion volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) (573–574). London; New York: United Bible Societies.
Of 1 Timothy 3.16 (whether to read theós or He, Who), professor Daniel B. Wallace claims :
“As attractive theologically as the reading θεός [god] ” may be, it is spurious .” ( Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics , 342):
Of 1 John 5.7, textual critic Philip W. Comfort, asserts: "John never wrote the following words: in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one."
And Bible translator Byington bluntly stated: "The old version contains forged texts ... 1 John 5.7 ... But those words never were in the Greek... [...] A man who uses the old version as his standard Bible [to support 1 Tim 3.16 & 1 John 5.7] has no right to claim that he is treating the Bible respectfully as the word of God."
All three scholars quoted are Trinitarians.
Melanie- fultimestudent mentions one source and their are many. Jewsforjudaism.org is another and it goes through Isaiah verse by verse.
Our Protestant/Western influenced mindset needs to be removed and we have to take a look at texts from the author's point of view and the culture at that time to understand these texts.
Hundreds of fulfilled prophecies are not something that can be made up on the fly, we don't live long enough to pull something like that off.
The gospels were prophecy written retrospectively. During the oral tradition period the Christian communities scoured the scriptures to find passages that they believed Christ had fulfilled and made up little stories around them. It was a sort of Christian midrash. Paul's epistles are replete with it.
Thanks for sharing your research Perry.
