A website formerly known as Messiah Truth has a link discussing this text:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/messiahtruth/exodus-22-28-don-t-curse-a-leader-t4935.html#.UsdPT_RDulo
Uri Yosef had posted this to me on my website a while ago on one of my papers:
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_30.html
I took a look at the link in question on 15th of October 2017 and there was a discussion that was taking place on the site. I will be looking at some of their points and responding to them as they discuss Jesus violating Exodus 22:28.
Sound familiar?
Uri Yosef posted the following on the site:
"
3. Not Honoring a Torah Sage"Honor the face of an elder [zaken] " (Leviticus 19:32). Zaken does not simply mean an old person; for that is the subject of the first half of the verse ("You shall rise before an old person [seiva]"). This is a commandment to respect Torah scholars. Judges and religious leaders are typically called zaken in the Bible (Exodus 24:14, Leviticus 4:15, Numbers 11:25, Deuteronomy 22:16, 25:7). If Jesus did not violate this by calling them "vipers," no one ever did (Matthew 23:13-33)."
Low and behold, this is almost exactly word for word what Barry Umansky posted: http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/interesting-objections-from-rabbinic.html
"3.Not Honoring a Torah Sage
"Honor the face of an elder [zaken] " (Leviticus 19:32). Zaken does not simply mean an old person; for that is the subject of the first half of the verse ("You shall rise before an old person [seiva]"). This is a commandment to respect Torah scholars. Judges and religious leaders are typically called zaken in the Bible (Exodus 24:14, Leviticus 4:15, Numbers 11:25, Deuteronomy 22:16, 25:7). If Jesus did not violate this by calling them "vipers," no one ever did (Matthew 23:13-33)."
My response is this.
Indeed one should respect their leaders or speak evil. However, one calling out a leader as a hypocrite when it's the truth, is not a sin and is not a violation of the Torah. Furthermore, Isaiah refers to his people as a brood of vipers because of their wickedness, which would include the scribes, judges and religious leaders who were encouraging their people in their idolatry.
Calling someone a hypocrite because of the fact they are doing evil in the sight of the Lord is not disrespect to any leader if they are responsible for bringing instructing people in the ways of Ha Shem or God. In the days of the NT, the Pharisees, though not guilty of worshiping statues, where certainly guilty of Avodah Zara or alien worship. They substituted the commands of God for the traditions of men, just as the people in Isaiah 29 did and Jesus quotes this passage to condemn the Pharisees in Matthew 15.
Of course in the forum post itself, there is the contention that the prophets were justified and encouraged the people whereas Jesus (or the New Testament) writers spewed hate against the Jews.
Is this true?
Apparently Jesus was insulting, badmouthing and reviling? For calling out religious leaders as hypocrites? There is nothing unbiblical about that nor is Jesus guilty of sin. Matthew 23 highlights major sins the Pharisees in his day. You can find the context here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23
Bottom line, calling out a religious leader on disobeying scripture (In this case, The TANAKH) is perfectly justified.
Sophiee1's posting of Uri Yosef's article on Sinless Jesus has objections which Barry Umansky quoted and which I responded to in the post above. If the Lord Wills I'll look at the article from Uri Yosef but the response to half (slightly more) will be fine for now.
Spewing of Hate from Jesus and the New Testament writers?
What is the truth? Let's look at the points:
"I'm surpised that weboh and others didn't bring up the prophets or Moses to prove that j-man didn't break this mitzvot." Hebrew wander
"Good point" Proteus
Now the objection in question from Arikm7.messiahtruth:
"HW:
They don't know their own NT, how could they (erroneously and mistakingly) use the personalities of the Tanach as a reference?
Regardless of what fabrications they try to posit to support that their godling didn't violate the Torah (and worshipping a man as god is not a violation in and of itself??), the point is that there is more than enough evidence in black and white for Jesus' vitriol against not only the Jewish leaders of Israel, but also (as in the case of 'John") the Jewish people themselves. Such hatred is unfounded, wanton and downright libelous. The xian gospels and the figurehead itself will stoop to any level to lie and demonize the Jew, all the while trying to disguise its vitriol as being righteous indignation. In my mind there is no difference in the words of Matthew ("snakes, vipers, white washed tombs, hypocrites, liars") John's bile ("you are children of your father, the Devil"), Paul's verbal vomit ("they killed the christ and god's prophets", "they are only concerned with their stomachs") and the propaganda spewed by Luther and later in ultimate extremes, the Nazis."
Comparing the statements of the New Testament to that of Martin Luther and the Nazis is nothing more than comparing apples and oranges. The Nazis were murderers who had no biblical justification for what they did to the Jews and none of the statements about the Jewish people in the New Testament are hate speech or vitriol.
Read my articles responding to Uri Yosef on his claims of Anti Semitism in the New Testament if you want more information on whether the New Testament is Anti-Semitic (His article was posted by Sophiee:
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_27.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_8351.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_6026.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_28.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_4202.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_30.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of.html
http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/anti-semitism-in-nt-examining-claims-of_3.html
The articles specifically address the texts he mentions in his paper called "The Anti-Jewish New Testament": http://thejewishhome.org/counter/AntiJewishNT.pdf
Read also my response to Yisroel Blumenthal on whether or not Jesus labeled all Pharisees and Jews as evil: http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/did-jesus-label-all-pharisees-and-jews.html
I recommend reading also another response I made to Yisroel Blumenthal to his article "Judge Not": http://answering-judaism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/critique-of-judge-not-response-to.html
"The slander of the elders of Israel and later, of the Jews, didn't start with the alleged Jesus (though it certainly gets no better approval/authority for doing so than via the words of xianity's god-man). It started with Paul and his letters (which pre-date the gospels) and later by the unknown writers of the gospels themselves. I say unknown as authorship of the four gospels (five, if you include the Gospel of Q on which "Mark" is based) comes to us from Catholic Tradition. Nevertheless, hating, demonizing and opposing the Jewish leaders and later the Jewish people as a whole is part and parcel of xianity's "gospel"."
Unknown writers? The authors were who they said they were and may have dictated to others to write their gospels down. Can anyone be sure that the TANAKH itself was written by the prophets or dictated by them to others if we hold to TANAKH AND the NT to the same standard which we should?
I recommend all to read this article by Keith Thompson on this issue:
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2012/02/who-wrote-gospels-internal-and-external.html
Regardless of whether or not they were written by the apostles, can any text be cited to prove that part and parcel of Christianity's Gospel is demonisation of the Jewish people, both leader and lay person alike? See the article responses to Uri Yosef above.
"Yet xians want to make the incredibly fanciful assertion that Jesus and company were most certainly "Torah-observant"; ignoring the litany of violations of that Torah throughout verse and passage of the Gospels. It's a virtual checklist of Torah violations culminating in vitriol and down right slander. I've said this before and I'll continue to say it a million more times, the Road to Auschwitz was paved with stones from the Damascus Road. Paul's anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism rants set the stage for the Gospel writers to have their main character Jesus be the blasphemer and the (false) accuser of the Jewish People. "
Most of the "violations" committed by Jesus or the apostles were against Rabbinic tradition that was either burdensome, not required or unbiblical and yes that includes the rubbing of the corn between the hands.*2
It also makes no sense to say Paul was anti-Jewish as some of his allies were Jewish followers of Jesus. See Romans 16:7:
"7 Greet Andronicus and Junia,[c] my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles,[d] and they were in Christ before me."
Some translations say Jews but the meaning is the same, his fellow race of people, his kinsmen:
http://biblehub.com/greek/sungeneis_4773.htm
"Then to say then that this accuser/liar against the Jewish People is a Torah-observant Jew or a Prophet chastizing the sins of Israel is nothing short of being both sickening and disgusting. Not even Moses himself used such vile language when upbraiding the "Wilderness generation" of Israel! Not even Elijah dared to accuse the Jews of being of the 'devil". In fact, when he asserted that ALL the Jews were worshipping Baal, G-d Himself had to correct Elijah of that assertion (7,000 Jews had NOT worshipped Ba'al) and then summarily "fired" Elijah and made Elisha His prophet. What, pray tell, would have been Jesus' punishment if (aside from actually existing) he were, for the sake of argument, a prophet?
And those who don't see the vile and bile of the NT conveniently don't want to see it. There is none so blind as one who does not want to see."
Odd to describe Elijah as "fired" since God still used him until he was taken to heaven. Never have I ever made that connection that Elijah was fired for what he said, but I digress. No Elijah didn't go as far as Jesus did in referring to (not all Jews but some) but Jesus did no wrong.
To go back to John 8:44, The Jews who were speaking to Jesus are Jews who believed in him, supposedly. However, as Jesus speaks, he reveals their heart's attitude towards him, Once again, this is referring to specific Jews in a given context, he is not saying ALL Jews are of the devil, he is condemning a particular group of Jews. They were shocked by his claims and also couldn't stand what he had said about them. They were superficially believing in Jesus, not really submitting to him. This is the one statement in all the Gospels that is commonly quoted by the Counter-Missionaries to attack the NT and accuse it of Jew Hatred.
Jesus statements in John 8:44 are not a blanket condemnation of all Jews, especially since his own apostles were Jews along with many others.
As for refusing to see vile and bile in the New Testament, It's not blindness, it's recognition that the New Testament in context were never intended to be anti-semitic documents.
Let's go to the next points:
"No one claims that Moses or any of the prophets were without sin -- or were more than human." Sophiee1.
"But when prophets railed against leaders, how does that differ from what J. supposedly did?" Proteus
To which we now respond to Sophiee
"Never in the bible does Moses or any of the prophets attack the Jews and curse them as Jesus does in the Christian bible -- condemning the Jews IN TOTAL, calling us hypocrites, devils, blind -- calling the devil our father and so on."
Jesus doesn't condemn the Jews in total, that's nonsense. He followers who were Jews. I point out that the condemnation of the Jews by him was not applicable to all of them in my response to Uri Yosef.
"Moses and the prophets never did such outrageous things.
When the prophets did castigate the Jews it was for turning away from G-d -- not for being observant!
Consider the incident of the golden calf. When G-d tells Moses what happened Moses pleaded for G-d to not turn away from the Jews (link). Moses gets angry, but he punishes only the evil doers -- never does he condemn everyone for the acts of a few.
Unlike Jesus.
The message of the prophets repeatedly is that those who sin should repent, become better people and return to G-d. The message of the prophets is always: be good people because this is what G-d wants from you.
" Isaiah called his people a brood of vipers in Isaiah 57:3, Is that outrageous and why not? How is that different from the statements of Jesus?
One of the messages from the Gospels of Jesus was to repent, much like Moses and the prophets. One paper has compiled from both the TANAKH and the New Testament references to repentance, including that of Jesus and Paul: http://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/repentance-bible-verses/
"Jesus' lack of forgiveness seems to be eternal: one weeps. One gnashes one’s teeth. One burns in eternal torment. ETERNAL.
The message of Jesus is that if you don't believe in him you are damned eternally.
"
Accusing Jesus of a lack of forgiveness is a very serious charge. Not to get into the technicalities of it all but Jesus forgives people on countless occasions (Luke 7:36-50 has a sinful woman anointing Jesus with oil, Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26 he forgives a paralytic and John 7:53-8:11 he forgives an adulterous woman).
Does Jesus proclaim that if you don't believe in him you are damned, Yes and if his claims are true, nothing else matters and we have to heed his warnings.*
"But as I already wrote -- it is hypocritical for a Christian to support Jesus' evil words and deeds by saying "someone else did it, too." This is reminiscent of a petulant child who does something bad and says "but all the kids are doing it." The bad behavior of others is not an excuse for bad behavior by Jesus.
And let us not forget that these same apologists state that Jesus was "perfect" and "without sin" and a god even. There is no comparison -- and to lump Moses and the prophets in with Jesus cursing others is slanderous -- while using the missionary's favorite ploy of deflecting attention away from what Jesus REALLY did."
No hypocrisy. If Isaiah can get away with calling his people a brood of vipers, Jesus if his claims are accurate can get away with calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers. Jesus committed no evil with his words against the Pharisees, they were just and right.
Where is the deflection from what Jesus did when his words are misrepresented by you and you claim the missionaries deflect attention from Jesus actions? I am not attacking you on a personal level Sophiee but what deflection is present?
Lord Willing more objections maybe addressed in another paper.
Answering Judaism.
*In addition, Jesus is warning against insulting your brother in faith and that they are in danger of hellfire, not that they can't be forgiven. There is no lack of forgiveness unless repentance is now where to be found.
17th of October 2017 *2 Rubbing the corn isn't what is bad, but the prohibition is not a capital offense.
No comments:
Post a Comment