your comments about these on the book of matthew:.
some christian writers claim that there are about 300 fulfillments of old testament prophecy in the new testament.
having examined these supposed fulfillments, i find that most of them are too vague to be convincing.
Truthhurts,
it's a long shot to debunk all the prophets as false. It's a really long shot. But look at the material on the book of Matthew and make comments about them. I believe in the bible. And the book of Matthew is part of the bible. But look at the above material and say sth about it. Look beyond the author, ctitique the reasoning. That's why I got this here.
your comments about these on the book of matthew:.
some christian writers claim that there are about 300 fulfillments of old testament prophecy in the new testament.
having examined these supposed fulfillments, i find that most of them are too vague to be convincing.
Your comments about these on the book of Matthew:
*************
Some Christian writers claim that there are about 300 fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy in the New Testament. Having examined these supposed fulfillments, I find that most of them are too vague to be convincing. Many are merely scriptures used – or abused – in theological discussions. Other Old Testament passages are twisted out of context, and forced to fit a New Testament story. None of the so-called fulfillments can be compellingly proven.
The thorough student will find this a fascinating topic, but time consuming. Let's focus on a few of the more amusing blunders found in the gospel of Matthew:
Immanuel
Matthew 1:22-23 and Isaiah 7:14
In about 742 BC, Ahaz, king of Judea, was troubled concerning the defense of his capital city, Jerusalem, against the alliance of Aram and Israel. The prophet Isaiah assured Ahaz that the planned conquest of Jerusalem would not succeed.
As a sign of his prophecy, Isaiah predicted that a young woman (not necessarily a virgin, as sometimes translated) would give birth to a son called Immanuel, and that before the child would reach the age of accountability, both Aram and Israel would be laid waste by Assyria. The prophecy and the sign are recorded in Isaiah 7.
According to Isaiah, the sign of the child was fulfilled in his own son, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (Isaiah 8:3-4). Although not explicitly stated, we can infer from the prophecy that the "Immanuel" in Isaiah 8:8 was directed to this son of Isaiah with such a prodigious name.
Overlooking the fact that the boy's age of accountability was somewhat stretched, the gist of Isaiah's prophecy was eventually fulfilled. Damascus, the capital of Aram, fell to the king of Assyria in 732 BC, and Israel was taken captive into Assyria in 721 BC. Isaiah's prophecy, and the accompanying sign of Immanuel, seemed to be happily settled. The case was closed.
About eight centuries passed. Then Matthew came along, and made an incredible claim – that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Immanuel predicted by Isaiah. Consider the following, and decide for yourself if anyone can soberly, intelligently, and seriously claim that Jesus was Immanuel:
There is no biblical record of Jesus being called "Immanuel" during his lifetime. (Isaiah 7:14 was not fulfilled in Jesus.)
Neither Aram nor Israel was conquered during Jesus' childhood. (Isaiah 7:16 was not fulfilled in Jesus.)
The prophetic sign had already been "fulfilled" in Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
The birth of "Immanuel" was intended as a sign for Ahaz. Jesus of Nazareth was born more than seven centuries too late to be a sign for Ahaz, who, of course, was dead.
The sign of a prophesied event must by definition occur before the fulfillment of the prophesied event. Jesus of Nazareth was born more than seven centuries after the prophesied event was "fulfilled."
The only part of Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth is that he was born as the result of a young woman's conception. But in this he was not unique. Everybody qualifies.
Mathew Lambastes Jesus
Matthew 2:15 and Hosea 11:1
Hosea, speaking in the name of Jehovah, lamented over the nation of Israel:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to images.... Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?... My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them. (Hosea 11:1-2,5,7)
Here, the same Israel which had come out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, is described as worshiping idols, turning away from God, and willfully refusing to repent.
About eight centuries after Hosea wrote this lament, Matthew reinterpreted it, claiming that Jesus of Nazareth was the "son" that God called out of Egypt.
For the sake of consistency, if we claim that Hosea wrote of Jesus in the first phrase of his lament, the remainder must also refer to him. It would be Jesus, then, who is called an unrepentant idolater, turning away from God. If Matthew was trying to elevate Jesus by connecting him with this Old Testament passage, his attempt backfired. Instead, he lambasted Jesus with a most irreverent dishonor.
Ramah and Rachel
Matthew 2:17-18 and Jeremiah 31:15
From 975 to 721 BC, there were two distinct Hebrew kingdoms. The northern kingdom was called Israel, Ephraim, or Samaria, and the southern kingdom was called Judah, or Judea. In 721 BC, the northern kingdom, Ephraim, was taken captive into Assyria.
Jeremiah, writing in about 606 BC, personified the land of Samaria as weeping for her exiled inhabitants:
A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more. (Jeremiah 31:15)
Two questions: Where was Ramah, and who was Rachel? There was a Ramah in Mount Ephraim of the kingdom of Israel (1 Samuel 1:1,19), and also a Ramah in Benjamin of the kingdom of Judah (Joshua 18:25). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh. Therefore, Rachel could have wept for her children in either of the two Ramahs. She was the mother of both Mount Ephraim and of Benjamin. However, verses 16-20 clarify that Rachel was weeping at the Mount Ephraim Ramah, for the northern kingdom which was in bondage to Assyria.
Six and a half centuries after Jeremiah wrote this lament for the Kingdom of Isarael, Matthew invented a story about King Herod killing every infant in Bethlehem and its outskirts, in about 4 BC. Matthew claimed that this slaughter of the innocents fulfilled Jeremiah 31:15.
It would be natural for the mothers of Bethlehem to weep for their murdered children, but can the mothers of Bethlehem be called "Rachel"? No, Bethlehem was a town of the tribe of Judah, and was never the inheritance of Rachel's children. Did Herod slaughter any children at Ramah? No, according to Matthew, he killed only the babies in Bethlehem and its outskirts. The closest Ramah was the one in Benjamin – a dozen miles from Bethlehem, with the major city of Jerusalem between them.
Matthew's claim that Jeremiah 31:15 was fulfilled in his story of the Bethlehem infants, is not credible.
As a side note, Josephus, the principal authority for King Herod's history, knew nothing about the slaughter of the innocents.
The Nazarene Figment
Matthew 2:23
So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene." (Matthew 2:23)
Which prophets? Nobody, scholar or layman, has been able to locate any such prophecy. It is a figment of Matthew's ample imagination.
Mission Unconscionable
Matthew 10:35-36 and Micah 7:6
Most Christians assert that during his lifetime, Jesus' ministry was an outpouring of love and righteousness. But according to Matthew, Jesus described his own mission quite differently:
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man's enemies will be the members of his own household." (Matthew 10:34-36)
War instead of peace. Contention instead of harmony. Division of families instead of unity. Does this sound like love and righteousness? If a man approached you, and told you that he came to cause strife in your family, would you fall down at his feet and call him lord? You would be better off to give him a black eye.
But this is not the worst of it. Jesus, according to Matthew, quoted Micah in the above passage. By consulting the book of Micah, we can put the quotation in context, and discover its fuller implications:
The godly have been swept from the land; not one upright man remains. All men lie in wait to shed blood; each hunts his brother with a net. Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire – they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.... Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with her who lies in your embrace be careful of your words. For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man's enemies are the members of his own household. (Micah 7:2-6)
So according to Matthew, Jesus of Nazareth came to promote bloodshed, graft, conspiracy, distrust, dishonor, and disloyalty.
The Ass-Sitting King
Matthew 21:4 and Zechariah 9:9
The oracle beginning at the ninth chapter of Zechariah, although calamitous for much of the Middle East, gives an optimistic outlook for the Hebrew nations. According to this prophecy, Jehovah said:
I will defend my house against marauding forces. never again will an oppressor overrun my people, for now I am keeping watch. Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:8-10)
The fulfillment of this prophecy, if it is to be fulfilled at all, must lie in the future. Israel has been overrun by oppressors throughout history, and is still threatened by the modern equivalents of chariots, war horses, and battle bows. If peace has been proclaimed to the nations, the nations have not heeded; and no king, whether or not he sits on an ass, has ever ruled from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
In spite of the evidence to the contrary, Matthew audaciously claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was the victorious king of Zechariah 9:9. If Jesus attempted to fulfill this prophecy at the time of his "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem, he failed miserably to accomplish anything beyond the ass-sitting requirement. In fact, whereas the prophecy states that "never again" would an oppressor overrun Israel, it was only about four decades after the "triumphal entry" that Jerusalem was completely destroyed by the Romans.
The triumphal entry did not fulfill this prophecy.
The Gospel of Matthew is Satirical
These phony fulfillments are not the only indications that Matthew did not take his story seriously. Others include inconsistencies in the genealogy of Jesus; various doublings of persons, animals, and events; two erroneous references to Zechariah; and general silliness. If Matthew did not mean to write serious history, what was his motive? An educated guess is that he was writing a satire, poking fun at Mark's gospel.
Matthew's bogus fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy are typical of the remainder of the New Testament, and a careful reader must understand that the New Testament cannot be regarded as valid history.
now we all know for you who have attended meetings at the kingdom hall and heard speakers from the platform give us bible verses and telling us that the ruler of this world is the devil of which i firmly believe due to the fact that this world is completely warped.. .
doesn't it strike you funny to see that satan who makes the rules for his system can't keep them and tries to manipulate rules and regulations always in his favor and that of his seed.. .
#1 example- did you know that according to the bible that satan's agents keep transforming themselves into agents of light.
happytobefree, you wrote:
"I don't think it is possible for humans to wait on Jehovah. To wait is to imply that we are ahead of Jehovah in thinking. This is a term that I have always found presumptious (sp?). And it is always the answer the WTBS and JW give when they have no answer."
That sounds like sound reasoning to me. Thanks.
{sworn testimony submitted by the society in evidence before the european human rights commission jul 3 1997}.
the applicant association (watchtower society) was represented by mm.
alain garay, philippe.
Trevor,
thanks for the info. It is a;ways enlighteneing to see the reaction when a JW is asked why they would accept products - say albumin - from blodd donated by others while they wouldn't allow theirs to be stored or processed. It's a question of the morality of the stance on blood. May be many haven't thought about it.
i am a christian, what is "jehova's witnesses " all about?.
how do i know which religion i belong to?
i believe in god fully, and i respect all what jehova's have to say when they come knocking at my door.
Seaken2001,
I have always believed the bible to be God's word. I do not yet have enough reason to believe otherwise. But there are certainly troubling questions that leapt at me as I went through some material from the literature of the WTB&TS about the book of Chronicles. The information I got was that 2nd Chronicles was not originally part of the Canon. The concept of the "Canon" called to question the "how" of how the books of the bible were compilled and by whom. These, I think, are important questions. What criteria were used in determining which books were canonical and which were not?
2 Tim 3:16,17 is quite a popular scripture, as it gives a blanket inspiration to all the books of the bible. But how do we ascertain (from the bible itself or elsewhere) how/why the books were compilled? Perhaps there are frieends out there who can help.
larc,.
great point.
makes me laugh...their crazy reasoning.. cmac
Cmac,
you forget Jesus himself was a Witness. Rev 1:5 I think.
some of you by choice or by compelling reason will attend the book study to consider the creator book.
during the study you might want to ask a few questions.
here are some things to ponder and maybe you can formulate some questions to ask your conductor.. this book is dreadful in its use of quotations.
Thirdson,
since that book was released, I've not had the courage to read the whole of it. The book studies I've not been attending regularly. I read a few pages of the book and noticed the quotes and started shivering. It's clad in the garb of a scientific work, or if you likr, the state of the art in the argument for the existence of God. But there's a shallowness about the book. The absence of references was indeed a put-off. We're to accept what's quoted as gospel truth. And knowing a bit of the accidental misqotations over the years... Actually, I see many of the borhters asking many questions about the arguments in this book.
now we all know for you who have attended meetings at the kingdom hall and heard speakers from the platform give us bible verses and telling us that the ruler of this world is the devil of which i firmly believe due to the fact that this world is completely warped.. .
doesn't it strike you funny to see that satan who makes the rules for his system can't keep them and tries to manipulate rules and regulations always in his favor and that of his seed.. .
#1 example- did you know that according to the bible that satan's agents keep transforming themselves into agents of light.
Spectro, you make a good point when you say God has used imperfect men throughout the bible. But did those men humbly admit their mistakes? When David counted and many people had to die did he claim to have done it in Jehovah's name. I am wont to be careful about statements I make, but look at what has and is happening and compare with the men in the bible. You see it, I suppose, but I do not, yet. May be we'll resurrect that Humility thread in the Main forum, all the "words of wisdom" were cut outs from the TMS material for that week. Have mistakes been made? Were they made at the instance of Jehovah?? Or humans?
As ianao said, it is difficult to accept an instruction not to speak to someone, especially when you're oblivious of what they've done.
the very first scripture cited under the "sharing on a judicial committee" in the elders book is duet.
1:16. here are a million questions!
how do members let the higher -ups use a scripture from the ot where moses was speaking to isreal, and completely disregard jesus' words?
Good points there Somebody.
Englishman, pls do be kind. Could you let the sword of your biting words wear some sheath of grace. There's something there about the practice but, Charlatans?
i have a little theory buzzing around in the back of my mind.
it was triggered by trevors comments re the low self esteem that is endured by many jw youngsters.. i`m wondering if the singing of kingdom songs can actually make you feel depressed and worthless.
i know it might seem a strange idea at first, but see if my reasoning doesn`t make at least some sense.. i frequently see the tv ad for linguaphone, the language learning course, that uses your repetition of foreign language phrases spoken along with a cassette recording.
Song 111 is now featured in many of the large gatherings. The words of the song makes one wonder...sometimes due to imperfection there may seem to be deflection, but truth was refined, and brighter light shines (not perfect, this' from memory!). We sang it at the last assembly. And now can't sing as loud as I used to.
