IWant2Know:
So, what about predictions such as Isaiah 11:6-9 and Isaiah 65:17-25? And Daniel 2:31-45, which I mentioned before?
Catholic, and mainstream Protestants, as well as Jews don't view them as "predictions" in the same sense as Jehovah's Witnesses and many Fundamentalists. A prediction is what a medium or soothsayer does, such as forecasting or foretelling the future, like a palm reader or spiritualist claims to do in a crystal ball.
The prophets did not predict the future, per se, as least not the way Jews, Catholics, and mainstream Protestants believe and some Fundamentalists hold.
The reason Jehovah's Witnesses believe this is that JWs teach that Jehovah is an entity or being that exists on the same temporal plain of existence that humans do, thus experiencing time from the same frame of reference that we do with one difference: that God can foretell or foresee the future (and past). Christians and Jews teach that the God of Abraham is Ineffable and therefore does not exist on our temporal plain. God created the temporal plain, including the phenomenon of time. Therefore God is not affected by time. The beginning, the middle, and the end of time are all available to God at once, like all the letters in a word. God is like the reader, outside a word, and we are like the ink on a page that make up the individual markings of each stroke of each letter on a page. God is not affected by time whatsoever.
For Jehovah's WItnesses, God must "foresee" and "foretell" the future and must keep time, partially because the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses is based on "timekeeping" and "the end of times." If this understanding fails, so does their teaching that their religion is the only true one. Their leaders have spent over a century trying to teach they only they can understand the "predictions" of the "prophets."
But if there are predictions, then explain to me the 30 pieces of silver prophecy in reference to Jesus before I explain the others.
Don't worry. You can't. You know why, because it isn't a prediction.
In reality, the writers of the New Testament, who were Jews, used a type of Jewish exegesis known as "midrash" to interpret Scripture to explain what the prophets meant in fulfillment about Jesus. "Midrash" is not a claim that a prophet or an oracle can foretell the future, but that a Jewish writer is using a play on words, claiming that the Holy Spirit put something deep into holy writ that had an application that was not apparent to the original composer of the text.
Take for instance this "prophecy" about Jesus being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. At Matthew 27:3-10, it is claimed that Judas betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and then Judas killing himself fulfills a prophecy written by Jeremiah. This is combination of three texts, neither of which are foretelling events, none speaking about the Jewish Messiah, and then only the first of the two which were written by Jeremiah.
The first is an obscure text about a potter from Jeremiah 18:2-3, then one about buying a field at 32:6-9; and then finally a text from Zechariah 11:12-13 and 30 where Zechariah receives 30 pieces of silver for his labor. The author of Matthew uses the technique of "midrash" to stitch them together to produce the "prophecy" of Jeremiah's oracle about the Messiah being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, even though such an oracle or prophecy about the Messiah never occurs in the book of Jeremiah. The author of Matthew can say that, however, under the rules of midrash--because a prophecy is not about predicting the future.
I'll bet you could not have done that if I had not told you that, now could you.
As for each text you have given me:
Isaiah 11:6-9--Isaiah is indeed talking about the ideal king in Davidic king and restoration under him for all Israel's benefit, but it should be noted that the oracle does not have any particular historical person or time period in mind.
Isaiah 65:17-25 is part of an apocalypse and not a prophecy, written by Deutero-Isaiah or maybe even Third or Fourth Isaiah. It is speaking of the conditions experienced by the Jews after they returned from exile to Babylon. Apocalypse speaks of the present in future terms, as if it has yet to be fulfilled, using symbols. The book of Daniel, as apocalypse, does this throughout its "visions," for example.
And none of the texts from Daniel are prophetic. The book is an "apocalypse," not a prophecy. In fact, "Daniel" is not even a real person. That is why when you open a Jewish Bible, the Book of Daniel does not appear in the "Prophets" section but in the "Writings" section.
The Book of Daniel was written by the Maccabees during their persecution and subsequent revolt under the Hasmoneons, with events ending in the celebrations of the very first Chanukah. "Daniel" is a folk hero--like America's Paul Bunyan. Daniel gives warnings and messages to Nebuchadnezzar, even though the Jews have been back from the exiles for generations now. They are facing a new threat from the Hellenists who want to stop Jewish worship. Using apocalyptic language that sound like oracles and visions, the Maccabees encourage their fellow Jews with folktales of Daniel overcoming the heathens and their gods, showing how they will defeat the Hellenists and restore the Temple and pure worship in their own day if they keep up the fight (which they did).
None of these are predictions.
And the son of man verses in Daniel 7:13-14?
The Church Fathers, using the "midrash" that Jesus and the apostles used as recorded in the New Testament, applied this to Jesus. Again, this is an apocalypse, not a book by a real prophet or even by a person named Daniel. The folk hero by that name did not exist and is not listed as one of the prophets of Israel in the Talmud.
And what do Jews believe Genesis 3:15ff means? Exactly what it reads. That women and snakes would not get along, etc. The story is not considered necessarily a literal story either. Remember this is the Torah, a book of Law, not history like Jehovah's Witnesses believe. So any narrative in its has some relation to the Mosaic Law itself.
The Torah ends with the story of Moses east of the Jordan not being able to enter the Promised Land. It is generally agreed that this was added as narrative during the exile to explain that the Jews, being "east" of the Promised Land, were still hoping to return. The narrative of the Garden of Eden is based on the type of enclosed garden of the king of Babylon that had a guard with a sword and kept people out. It had, on its outside, cherubim, for the decor. Adam and Eve in the narrative represent the Jews who, though in the "image of God," break covenant (represented by stealing from one of the trees) and then covering themselves up afterwards (believing they are naked or no longer in God's image). They are sent out of the paradise and left "east of Eden," or in Babylon.
The Torah begins like it ends, with characters on the "east" of paradise or the Promised Land. In both instances Moses and Adam & Eve represent the position the Jews are in, wanting to return. If the people observer the Torah, the just might.
Of insterest, the Tree of Life represents enterance to the Most Holy or the Temple itself. Christianity saw it as the Cross. The author of the Gospel of Luke uses the Greek equivalent for cross (starous--there really wasn't an equivalent because the "cross" was a new Roman invention that did not exist when the Greek language was around, thus the new Latin word "crux") but after Jesus is resurrected in Acts he starts using the word for tree instead (xylon) such as in Peter's speech on Pentecost.
Now let me ask you for a change:
I am Jewish by birth. I have a Catholic parent and a Jewish one. I went to Catholic catechism and Hebrew school. I learned Koine Greek, ecclesiatical Latin, and Biblical/liturgical Hebrew. I got raised for a few years by a JW relation when my parents divorced but left when I grew up. What religion am I today?
Now that you have read my replies, what are your counter arguments? If you have none what are you doing about it?
If you have them, what are they?
Who cares what I believe? How cares about what you believe? What are you doing with your life now that is helping others more than you? Finding answers for you is good--but it's a selfish thing to an extent. To a cetain point you have to stop asking and start doing. Jehovah's Witnesses are a selfish religion that teach to ask, ask, and learn, learn, for yourself, self, self, self. What do you do that forgets about you for a change? (Don't answer me on this last one. Answer yourself and then go do it)
