For Nosborne

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Guest, Sep 21, 2005.

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  1. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Hi Nosborne,

    Due to your thoughts on the other thread, I thought you'd be interested in the Restoration Foundation.

    I subscribe to their magazine, Restorer, and got the new edition in the mail today and was reminded of your posts.

    I like this quote of the site:

     
  2. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Really?

    I have heard that there's a movement of Christians (or maybe former Christians?) that seek to live by the Noahide Laws and spurn anything else.

    Jesus WAS a Jew. He wasn't a Christian.

    Unfortuantely, I suspect that he was ALSO a Jewish outcast based solely on what I know of Jewish law of the era (which is a fair amount, really) and the stories in the gospels.

    If you like (and wouldn't be seriously offended) I'll write this to you. Believe me, if I am right, his outcast status was in NO WAY his fault but came about by operation of a particularly vicious feature in the Jewish laws of ritual purity.
     
  3. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Explain. This sounds interesting and I will most certainly NOT take offense.
     
  4. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    Yeah, I'd like to read that, too.
     
  5. mattchand

    mattchand Member

    "You may fire when ready, Gridley." :)
     
  6. marilynd

    marilynd New Member

    Yeah, heave to . . .

    . . . or is it, "man the quartermain" . . .

    no, no, I think it must be "strike the bilge pump" . . .

    Damn, I always get these nautical things mixed up.

    Nevertheless, ready when you are, Cap'n!

    :)

    marilynd
     
  7. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    It's a trend by gentile Christians to recover the roots of the faith and acknowledge the vine upon which they have been grafted (to paraphrase the NT).

    Here's my favorite organization:

    http://www.en-gedi.org/

    A little quote from them:

    There are some who are turning back to the dietary codes and the necessity of circumcision, but I think they'd better start reading the entirety of the NT, or you're right, Dr. Osborne, they'll essentially be making "former Christians" of themselves. The Christ died to fulfill those laws.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2005
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    This is a rather involved subject. I really don't want to shoot from the lip, as my second ex wife used to say (she was a lawyer, too) so I need some time to prepare it.

    Now, please keep in mind that I am no scholar! This is merely an uneducated non Christian man's speculation in light of certain things in the NT (remember, I don't read Greek) combined with my Jewish layperson's study of Torah, Talmud and the various later Codes over many years.

    I don't want to make a mystery here; what I have to say is not worth any such thing, so I will spill the beans immediately but not fully explain:

    The thing that got me to thiinking was the whole sequence of Joesph discovering that his wife was pregnant before they were married but after they were betrothed.

    He is told in a dream to take her as his wife anyway (something that Catholics say he never really did in any Jewish sense, BTW; you HAVE to sleep with your wife for her to BE your wife).

    Now, this is a bizarre scenerio. Briefly, under Jewish law at the time, he COULDN'T marry her; she was an adulteress by definition UNLESS Joseph himself fathered the child. But if that was the case, the couple had violated a major set of rules regarding the conduct of engaged couples. That's okay; certainly it was as common then as it is now.

    Actually, the idea of them travelling together to Joseph's ancestral city is itself something observant families would never have permitted. This is no mere superstitious taboo; Jewish law at the time literally ASSUMED that a man and woman who were not close relatives and were left alone together for more than an hour or two HAD engaged in sexual intercourse. This actually shows up in more traditional Jewish wedding ceremonies today.

    So if that was the case, why was the story even necessary?

    I think (guess, speculate, wonder whether) the problem was that Jesus was a mamzer and was KNOWN to be a mamzer.

    "Mamzerut" is usually translated as "bastardy" but that translation is wildly inaccurate. A mamzer is the child of a legally impossible union. The most common example, which is causing intense debate and no small amount of human tragedy in Israel today, is a child born of a married (OR ENGAGED) woman who was fathered by someone other than her fiance or spouse.

    In Jesus' time, a year generally passed between engagement and marriage. In the Diaspora, the galut, I mean, the two ceremonies are celebrated one right after the other so the issue of an affianced woman giving birth no longer comes up. In modern Israel, the problem arises when a woman remarries and has a child without having obtained a religious divorce (get) from her first husband.

    Now there are Torah consequences to mamzerut and they are nasty. A mamzer is not permitted to enter into the congregation of the Lord, nor may his children do so. EVER.

    Jesus occasionally entered synagogues and houses of study but for all his eloquence there is nothing to show that he ever established a "school" or was instructed in one. He drew his disciples largely from the humbler orders or more dispised groups (tax collectors and fishermen) who were, to put it plainly, not overly demanding from an intellectual standpoint when it came to his teaching. He did not teach in the usual Jewish fashion.

    Another flag, to me, is that there is no sign that he ever married even though the Cana scene suggests that he approved of marriage. Now, a mamzer MAY be married but only to another mamzer or to a ger, a convert, NOT to another born Jew. Again, this prohibition applies to the mamzer's children as well.

    Jesus also expressed condemnation of the "scribes and pharisees" in the strongest language while at the same time advising people to obey them! "But woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, you nest of vipers" and "whited sepulchers" etc. Why?

    This really is nothing but opium dreams of mine but could it be that the law as taught and enforced by those same scribes and pharisees worked a horrible hardship of exclusion upon the man himself? Not merely socially and maritally, which is bad enough, but also spiritually? He CARED about these things yet was forceably separated from them FOREVER.

    Still, if he WAS a mamzer, there needed to be some explaination that would allow him to associate with the mass of Jews. Remember, please, that at one point Jesus was actually HOSTILE to the idea of sharing his teaching and healing with Gentiles. Treated them as DOGS, if I recall correctly. So that made the dream sequence necessary; it was okay to associate with Jesus because God SAID it was okay.

    In outline, there it is. It needs lots of research and footnoting and may turn out to be absolute historical NONSENSE. But if I had the incredible background of, say, Dr. Grover, I would investigate it. I think that it deserves ruling out, at the least.
     
  9. mattchand

    mattchand Member

    Hi Dr. Osbourne,

    I'll give a short response now, and try and flesh things out if I get time. I'm sure others more knowledgeable than I will also add their bit.

    1. If I'm not mistaken, this idea is broadly taken from a bit of medieval slander called the Toledot Yeshu, in which it is alleged that Jesus was the mamzer son of Miriam and a Roman Solder named Pantera. I remember being initially presented with this after I'd decided to follow Jesus when I was 17 (I'm 40 now).

    2. As an aside, there is also a prophesy in Isaiah 7:14 about the virgin birth, and which the NT applies to Jesus. Now, I know about the objection that in the Hebrew text, the word is almah, which can be a virgin (and indeed in antiquity would be assumed to be one), and which was translated by the (pre-Christian, Jewish) Septuagint writers as parthenos, which is understood as virgin. (Besides, not much of a "sign" if it's just a "young woman" who gives birth; happens every day. ;)

    3. You noted that under Jewish law, if she was pregnant and it wasn't Joseph, then she was by definition an adultress and unmarriageable. Indeed, this is why he was going to quietly divorce her, since it was "obvious" that she had played around. The shame of being married to such a woman could only have been overcome by something really dramatic, like, well, an angel appearing to him in a dream. This is, if anything, an indication of the veracity of the virgin birth narrative. Certainly there is nothing in the Gospel narratives themselves which clearly indicate his even being accused on this point.

    4. He didn't only drop in on synagogues occasionally. Consider the following from the Luke narrative:

    --The narrative notes that going to the synagogue on Sabbath was "His custom". Would that have been the case with a mamzer?
    --Not only regular attendance, but He was "handed the scroll of Isaiah" to read publicly. This means that he had studied Torah on some sort of formal level, as literacy was nothing small in antiquity. It also means that He was (until then) a person of some standing in the synagogue.
    --He was teaching in their synagogues, evidently gaining fame as a teacher and wonder-worker.

    There are also numerous places in which He is in the Temple itself; if he were a mamzer (or even known as one, even if it weren't true), He would have been violently thrown out.

    5. The harshest words Jesus had were for the Sadducees, who rejected the Tanakh (OT) as well as Talmud, as well as an afterlife and spiritual beings other than God (angels, et al.). His challenge to the rabbinical establishment were more often than not related to not Torah per se, but to the Oral Law, which He clearly did not see as Divine. At times He would side with one interpretation of the law versus another (as with his siding with Shemei rather than Hillel on divorce), but other times He would challenge things like what He clearly saw to be overly strict interpretations of Sabbath restrictions. A very cursory overview of Talmud is found here.

    6. As indicated above, Jesus' teaching was, in fact, similar in style to that of some of the rabbis of the same period. Certainly he had not only an inner circle of disciples, as well as a larger group of people who were attracted both by His teaching as well as by His reputation as a miracle-worker. And while He certainly attracted a high percentage of plain or even what would be considered bad people, His was an invitation to transformation; he also had disciples (albeit sometimes secret ones) among the Jewish leadership such as Nicodemus, and by the time Paul returns to Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 21:20, Ya'akov can mention about the thousands of Jewish believers in Jesus, and how they are all zealous for Torah.

    Anyway, it's pushing midnight out here, and I gotta go to bed.

    Shalom Alechem,

    Matt
     
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Matt,

    No, oddly, even a mamzer could attend a synagogue. Synagogues then as now are open to whomever wishes to enter. Even you! ;) But there's a difference beteen attending and teaching. Here in the U.S. there's a difference, sometimes a BIG difference, between attending and membership.

    Furthermore, although this seems odd, the mamzer child WOULD be circumsized. There are some rather obscure reasons for this, but it was, and is, undoubtedly teh case.

    I am unaware of your middle ages source. However, the factors I've described are obvious enough that it would be shocking if the notion hadn't surfaced in the past.

    The handling of the scroll is in interesting point. I can offer you this possibility, though, which might explain why he travelled so much in his ministry: There was no central register of mamzerim. It was not at all uncommon for a mamzer to leave his birth community and go elsewhere where he was not known to be a mamzer. Even today, and likely then, no one would be likely to check unless he decided to marry. Then they WOULD check.

    I respectfully disagree with your contention that he taught like other teachers. He didn't. He taught from his own authority, something no pharisee, for example, would have done then or now.

    I will agree that he PREACHED like other preached, but it's not the same thing.

    Please do not assume that I consider the status of mamzer to be shameful for the child. It is a horror that by itself is sufficient to call into question the doctrine of divine revelation of Torah. Reform Jews have abandoned it altogether, though Orthodoxy continues to observe it and, in Israel where they control matters of personal status, it is enforced. Unfortunately, this IS the age of computers and databases.

    As to Mary, well, she was in a bad but not unnatural place. "God did it" is an interesting excuse, but kind of hard for me to believe. At least it had the virtue of originality.

    Well, we'll never know of course.
     
  11. Guest

    Guest Guest


    There is an ad for them in the current Restorer.

    They are advertising a book titled Listening to the Language of the Bible: Hearing It Through Jesus' Ears.

    I think the modern movement to understand the Semitic background of the Bible is more solidly rooted in scholarship than attempts of the past, especially those of George Lamsa.

    I like Lamsa's earlier works but he got involved in the religious science movement and incorporated metaphysics and mysticism into his work and lost credibility with many who had earlier supported his work, such as the Eastern Christian churches.
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    GOSH you people are kind and patient! What have I done but cast polite aspersions on your entire FAITH yet you treat me with the greatest consideration!

    Heck, even Jesus cast out the money changers!
     
  13. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Yea, but we like you! ;)

    Good civil discourse no matter how vehement the disagreements is what a forum should be all about.

    Anway, we are showing you how Christians should act towards everyone.

    When I lived in Tupelo, Mississippi, one of my best friends was married to a Jewish man. I attended Temple (Reformed) on several ocassions with them and found the service incredibly beautiful and meaningful and the people quite endearing and lovely.
     
  14. mattchand

    mattchand Member



    Dr. Osbourne,

    As noted earlier, Jesus was handed the scroll in His "home shul" in his hometown. While He was not born there, it is where He was raised, and if He had been what you have implied it would have come up.

    His not having been married, while not the "usual" thing in Jewish culture, was far from an indicator of something ominous. Consider the apparent unmarried state of the prphet Jeremiah, or of the monastic Essenes of the same period.

    Well, I guess that beats angrily or petulantly disagreeing! :D

    In my equally respectful opinion, you are engaging in something of an anachronism. Remember that Judaism still had many sects, and it wasn't really until the council of Jamnia at the end of the first century that the Pharisee sect was able to truly consolidate its position of supremacy. Other groups, such as Sadducees and Essenes (and even the later Karaites) rejected the Oral Law or perhaps had some form of their own. While Jesus is shown interacting with Talmudic material (generally showing more adversity towards ideas representitive of the school of Shemai, the divorce opinion notwithstanding), in the main he is sometimes agreeing with, sometimes disagreeing with Talmudic thought, but in the main your point is correct in that He doesn't rest the authority for anything He teaches on previous rabbinic opinion, but speaks on His own authority. Well, I guess that was a major part of the point, now wasn't it? The fact that he was performing miracles doubtless helped as well. At any rate, I would dispute whether one could really say that there was one legitimate Jewish teaching style in that period.

    Nonetheless, Dr. Osbourne, you are essentially saying that a major Christian belief is built upon a cheap excuse by a pregnant teenager. I don't believe the evidence at hand can warrant such a conclusion. Although certainly there was no one at hand at the time who offered empirical "proof" by testing for her hymen, the whole idea seems to go completely against the entire ethics of the Christian faith itself.

    Perhaps an illustration: I have a relative who attends a Conservative shul, but who denies the veracity of a pretty hefty chunk of Torah, including the Passover account in Exodus. He has mentioned that there is "no proof Moses even existed". My response has been to note: 1) If the whole Passover story is a hoax, why bother with Judaism at all? It's the central event in the entire Jewish religion, and, more germaine to our discussion here, 2) The Israelites consisted of 12 tribes of people who had been slaves for hundreds of years in Egypt. They lived in the desert in tents. They weren't likely to leave anything strong enough to last several thousand years in the desert. The Egyptians, on the other hand, were a powerful civilization which left behind a multitude of chunky monuments in stone, but such peoples aren't known to build commemorative monuments to their failures. Perhaps someday, some enterprising archeologist will discover the sculpture which will solve this mystery: An enormous horse's back end, with the translated hieroglyphics reading, "Idiot! Why couldn't you just let them go!" :D The point being, any such assertion about Moses would have to be enormously compelling in order to be taken seriously.

    Shalom,

    Matt
     
  15. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Matt, Matt, Matt,

    You DO have a disturbing habit of cutting RIGHT to the meat, don't you?

    As I said elsewhere, I noticed that my posts DO add up to pretty much exactly what you SAY they add up to, nevertheless, everyone is still nice to me.

    Well, it was a dangerous discussion whose ultimate result I foolishly did not forsee, else I wouldn't have begun it.

    All right. I am known on this board as a liberal Jew. I am also known as one who rejects absolutely and utterly the Christian message of necessary vicarious atonement. I have also said that, whatever god Mel Gibson worships, it sure ain't the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    However, I certainly never intended my posts to be quite so brutally REDUCED, as it were!

    As to the mamzer theory, I agree that the text says that he taught in his home town where he was known. I am TEMPTED to suggest that this is but another invention for the purpose of establishing his bona fides but I have boxed myself into the place where I can't do that; I relied on the gospels to raise my suspicians in the FIRST place; it would be...unseemly...for me to attack them NOW.

    Sooo, I concede. I still don't know why Jesus didn't marry but it appears from the evidence you adduce that he was, in fact, accepted as a Jew in every sense.

    Notice, please, that I am NOT raining the tattered and wron, "maybe he was gay" thing. There are some things too rediculous even for MY flying fingers!
     
  16. mattchand

    mattchand Member



    Are you addressing my spirit, soul and body individually? ;)



    Well, if I wanted gristle and by-products, I could go to White Castle! (on the other hand, perhaps better to avoid White Castle! :eek: )

    I hope I was, too, in spite of the, um, butchery described above! ;) That aside, "what Jimmy said".

    We're all entitled to our respective views and positions. I suppose the above would be worth an interesting discussion at some point (although I have a feeling it's already on another thread form the past).

    Perhaps an interesting discussion point might be the idea of Yeshua as as the ideal and perhaps ultimate Tzaddik.

    By the way, what do you mean by "liberal Jew"? Theologically or politically? (Just curious, really).

    I guess for now I would just wonder, if the Gospels were thus full of such inventions, then when were they made up? For what? By whom? Any manuscript evidence?

     
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Matt,

    ANOTHER interesting question!

    Religions DO arise from time to time and take the world by storm. Christianity, of course, Islam (with help from the sword) Buddaism (which oddly receded from India, the place of its birth...)

    Unless you are prepared to admit that the existence growth and survival of, say, Mormonism is as much evidence of God's approval of that religion as the growth, etc. of orthodox Christianity, you are stuck with a genuine mystery of human nature.

    We apparently just HAVE these convulsions from time to time. And sometimes on pretty thin evidence, objectively speaking. (Stone tablets? Magic spectacles? The gospels? The life of the Budda?)

    Judaism is a strange exception, BTW. By sheer numbers, we shouldn't be accounted one of the world's great religions. There are, and have been, fewer Jews in history by a couple orders of magnitude than Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddists, or even pagans.

    The religion never managed to separate itself from its tribal roots; indeed, a common Jewish shorthand for identifying another Jew is "M.O.T." which stands for, "Member of the Tribe".

    Unless you subscribe to the idea that Christianity IS Judaism's adaptation to a non tribal world?

    I don't know; there is certainly SOME Judaism in Christianity but the religions are SO different...
     
  18. mattchand

    mattchand Member

    This'll be all for now (bedtime... other side of the world here), but Im wondering what I said that you're responding to here. I certainly don't think the spread of Christianity historically is "proof" of its veracity in and of itself.

    Are we talking past each other?

    Peace,

    Matt
     
  19. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Actually, Buddhism did not really recede from India, the land of its birth. What did happen was that Buddhism became very successful and was exported all over Asia ... until it came to seem a bit too foreign, mayhaps too cosmopolitan, for some Indians. So there was created a new distinctively Indian form of Buddhism ... known to us today as Hinduism.
     
  20. Charles

    Charles New Member

    Ted,

    Doesn’t the Hinduism predate Buddhism by thousands of years?
     

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