Posts by Jeffro

🤦‍♂️'What you have' is simply deference to your chosen religious tradition which is not supported by any direct evidence, and is contradicted by direct contemporary evidence.

The funny thing is, Ezra and Josephus both claim to quote a written decree, which not only isn't verifiable from any contemporary source, and contradicts the contemporary sources, but Josephus inserts a remarkable claim about Cyrus supposedly including mention of the 'prophecy' in his decree, which Ezra doesn't include even though he was much closer to the purported events. This on its own is a glaringly obvious clue to the fact that the claim inserted by Josephus (that Cyrus was supposedly aware of the 'prophecy' from Isaiah) was a tradition made up either by Josephus himself or after Ezra's time at the earliest.

Vidqun:

Lot of hearsay there.

No part of what I said was hearsay (unless you mean the claims made by Ezra and Josephus, but somehow I don't think so). I'm not sure you understand what the word means.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

Neither of those people is my source, so your attempted false dichotomy is irrelevant. The Cyrus Cylinder, a contemporary document, indicates that various people were repatriated, with particular focus on Mesopotamia and with no specific mention of the Jews. Ezra and Josephus are later sources, and have an inherent bias. No contemporary document shows that Cyrus wrote the statement claimed by Ezra several decades later, nor the interpolated written statement claimed by Josephus several centuries after that. You are the one asserting that Cyrus wrote something that isn’t in any available contemporary source and inconsistently reported only by later Jewish sources.

Even if it could be demonstrated that Cyrus accredited anything to Yahweh, for which there is no evidence, it would at best indicate that Cyrus simply said what the Jews wanted to hear to placate them. We know Cyrus made decrees benefiting the people of Babylon and crediting their deities, which at the very least contradicts the claim that he recognised the Jews or their deity as unique or special.

14

Facts or Biasedness?

by Ardian in

the watchtower and awake have been listed as the most popular magazines.the figures are astonishing.

i am not sure whether it is based on reality or not.. source: https://tingtopten.com/2020/01/top-10-most-popular-magazines-in-the-world/.

i have seen the link on many social media networks.

Jeffro

Something given away for free or sometimes just dumped doesn’t have to be popular. And a 32 (or more recently 16) page magazine made with free labour is not really comparable to magazines with hundreds of pages.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️ The Jews weren’t the only ones who were allowed to go home and rebuild temples. The claim that the Jews were given special treatment by Cyrus is simply false and your sources for the claim that Cyrus gave the Jews special attention are obviously biased, with no independent corroboration. You put far too much stock in subjective stories.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

Fallacy: shifting the burden of proof.

Later Jewish traditions are not evidence of anything Cyrus did, and the Cyrus Cylinder indicates that Cyrus focused more on Mesopotamian groups including placating the people of Babylon. Repatriation of other captives also occurred as a general policy but no special attention was given to the Jews.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️ For a start, the Cyrus Cylinder doesn’t mention the Jews at all let alone suggest they got special treatment.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

he cl

Vidqun:

Overall Josephus was a trustworthy historian. According to him Cyrus was aware of the Isaiah prophecy. This made him favor the Jews, allowing them to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. Later Darius discovered Cyrus' edict and he allowed the Jews to carry on with their work. In the end the temple was rebuilt.

Josephus repeating a Jewish tradition that existed by his time is not evidence that Cyrus or Darius actually said something or why. For a start, Cyrus did not make any special edict just for the Jews, but had a broader policy of allowing captives in Babylonia to return to their homelands and practice their own religious beliefs. This was in order to quell social unrest, for the same reason that Cyrus dedicated a temple to Marduk in Babylon.

3 for he stirred up the mind of Cyrus, and made him write this throughout all Asia:--``Thus says Cyrus the king: Since God Almighty has appointed me to be king of the habitable earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites worship;
4 for indeed he foretold my name by the prophets, and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem, in the country of Judea.''

Antiquities here interpolates part of Isaiah 44:28-45:1 (not written by Isaiah) into Ezra 1:2 rather than actually quoting Cyrus. The fact that Josephus interpolated the claim about Cyrus knowing of the supposed 'prophecy' (or quoted a Jewish tradition that had developed after the writing of Ezra) into the statement in Ezra is evident from the fact that the 'quote' in Antiquities isn't even consistent with what Ezra 1:1 says Cyrus proclaimed, and neither is consistent with Cyrus' broader policy rather than special treatment of just the Jews.

42

God and Unicorns

by Sea Breeze in

atheist scientists now agree that "elasmotherium sibiricu" lived with humans.

all they had to do was read their bible to know that.

job 39:9 “will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?”.

Jeffro

Anony Mous:

This is what makes natural diamonds so rare and expensive.

No, that would be the DeBeers corporation. 😂