/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>751509

I've not read his book but have seen similar claims made before about particular passages in the NT. I have no expertise in this subject, but can point you to someone who does. The article starts by asserting that Matthew had used the Old Testament improperly, but his use of the OT was entirely in keeping with practices of the time:

http://christianthinktank.com/baduseot.html

Seen more clearly by examining the particular examples this writer claims Matthew had abused. I'll link to two of them:

Matt 21:4–5 (scroll down or Ctrl+F to the "The Two Animal Problem section"):

http://christianthinktank.com/diplopia.html

Matt 27:9:

http://christianthinktank.com/judas30where.html

He also weaves into his article a claim that is more suspect:

>The net result of all this is obvious: The early Christian belief that Jesus fulfilled prophecy arose after and because of the belief that he was the promised messiah. This very important finding needs to be emphasized. The belief that Jesus was the messiah was the basis for the belief that he was the fulfillment of prophecy.

That prophecy played no initial role in their acceptance of Jesus is flat-out wrong, because Messianic expectations were very high during that period of time:

http://christianthinktank.com/messiah.html

mainly because of the detailed, and unambiguous, prophecies found within the Book of Daniel. It also seems to assume that there was nothing particularly special about Jesus, that His miracles and teachings played no role either. He also assumes that the enemies of the early Church were all completely impartial critics, with no agenda of their own. That's not the picture the Gospels paint, it should be noted.

>>751509

>Robert J. Miller is Associate Professor of Religion at Juniata College in Pennsylvania. A longtime Fellow of the Jesus Seminar

>Jesus Seminar

Found the main problem already

>Christian history is marred with the ugly consequences of the anti-Judaism fostered by those beliefs. In view of the horrifying price that Christians have forced Jews to pay for keeping their covenant with God, isn't it about time to stop insisting on Matthew's mistaken premise?

This author needs to get off the weaksauce.

Jesus predicted the temple would be destroyed and it's one of the most verifiable, easy to understand prophecies that I think solidifies the proof of Christianity. It changes Christianity from "just a sect" to the New Covenant because the old order of things were completely btfo.

Just to recap…

Jesus predicted this would happen while some of that generation still lived. 38ish years later 70A.D. occurred.

What I find funny is Jesus says "not one stone left upon another" which if you go look historically Titus told his soldiers to chill once they had basically won, and they neglected it because they thought the Jews were hiding gold in the walls. The most disciplined army in the world said winnie the pooh it and removed every damn stone against the orders of their general.

And then to add insult to injury they took the gold they did find and used it to finance the Colosseum, which they also inadvertently made the Jews build for them in the form of slave labor from Jewish prisoners.

To recap again, Jesus prophesied arguably the worst thing to ever happen to the Jews if you read the accounts of what actually happened. Should we water that down too? Does it not matter anymore?

I am for one not an anti-Semite, although I do very much find the religion extremely false and dangerous. But to water down scripture for fear of not being philo-semetic enough is essentially the root cause of too many heresy's in America.