Herk, I was merely paying you a small complement. You should learn how to respond to them. Unfortunately you arrogantly threw it back in my face.
Psalms 10:12 "Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble."
Try being this once in a while, Herk.
You made some good points, but I have some refutations.
Genesis 21:33 "And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God."
Psalms 100:5 "For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."
Psalms 119:142 "Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth."
Isaiah 40:28 "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."
What do all these verses have in common? The word everlasting, or "`owlam".
You said:
["Everlasting origins" is a biased and misleading translation in Micah 5:2. The promise of the Messiah could be traced "to the distant past." The same Hebrew expression is found in Deuteronomy 32:7. The almost exact wording appears in Micah 7:14, Amos 9:11 and Isaiah 63:9, 11, where even the KJV consistently renders it as "the days of old," having nothing to do with eternity. The Hastings Bible Dictionary translates the expression in Micah 5:2 as "remote antiquity," adding that days of eternity wrongly suggests the eternal preexistence of the Messiah.]
In Micah 5:2, I realized it's all a matter of interpretation. You gave some verses which the word "everlasting" is used clealy figurative meaning "time of old", or "ancient times." You were right about this.
However, these verses which I gave you use the same word "everlasting", but it means something different.
Genesis 21:33 "And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God."
Isaiah 40:28 "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."
Does this mean that the LORD Jehovah is the God of ancient times? In these verses it clearly means that Jehovah is everlasting. Well, if these verses say that Jehovah is everlasting why not interpret that the word "everlasting" to mean the same thing in Micah 5:2?
Again, I believe that it's a matter of interpretation. In some instances the word "`owlam" is clearly used to mean ancient times, and in others, it is really meant to mean eternity. Perhaps my argument wasn't as strong as I thought, but my interpretation still stands.
Here is a perfect example of a verse that you ignore.
Isaiah 9:6 "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
The Messiah is called the Mighty God and the everlasting Father.