The Narrow Path Ministries

karenprtlnd wrote:
YHWH
Yaway. Yes, of coarse.

JHVH
Jahovah. A "kind of phonetic" as well.

I believe that these are both one and the same Lord of the Jew, not YHWH the Father and his Son JHVH.

The two forms are different stylings of the same tetragrammaton in Hebrew.

(a) A historical study of the councils would not reduce their decisions to the writings of the apostles and the prophets.

That would depend upon which decisions we are talking about. The Trinity doctrine (which I believe is correct) still arose late and I've seen no evidence that any particular council (except for perhaps the first council in Jerusalem) was inspired or given authority by the Heavenly King.

(b) "We" have a rather limited privilege when it comes to making rules of "orthodoxy." That market has been cornered considerably by 1500+ years of investment.

Right, but why should we not exercise our privilege? Also, to be completely accurate, there was always a minority of Christians who didn't submit to the authority of the Roman church. This was always a minority bunch and most were executed but still... God seems to favor minorities.

(c) Certain specific hypotheses related to the Trinity are rejected by the hegemonic stance of the church across time, even when taking into account both conciliar and non-conciliar parties. And some or all of these hypotheses are nevertheless held by unwitting Christians in the present day.

The hegemonic stance of the church is only important when one properly defines what the church is. Are you speaking merely of the institution which began in Rome, had a great schism, and a thousand years later broke off into hundreds of splinter organizations?

(a) Most Christians - historically and presently - belong to churches that do not reduce authority to the written records of Jesus and the apostles. Many Christians believe in authority found in the church itself.

Many Christians do indeed believe in the authority of the institutional church, I'm just not one of them - an opinion that would've cost me my head at certain periods in history. But you also don't recognize Orthodox Judaism as authoritative, correct? Does that make you wrong about which writings you choose to follow? We must not think that majority opinion determins truth. The minority could obviously be wrong but it can't be assumed.

(b) You have the privilege of formulating your own theological understanding as you see fit, but you should be cautious when declaring what "Christians" think or believe. History and facts on the ground may dispute your assertion.

I don't understand this statement. We both agree the majority of Christians throughout history have held a Trinitarian belief so I don't dispute that. I'm only disputing your idea that conformity to majority opinion is what puts one "in the club." Your thinking is very traditional here, which surprises me.

(a) The mitzvot may or may not come from the Creator in a conventional sense. But one way or the other, the situation remains the same: whether the immediate result of human imagination or of extraordinary mystical encounter, the mitzvot are the stipulations of a commitment to G-d.

Why is it evident that the mitzvot are the stipulations of a commitment to G-d? The Buddhists, Hindus and Atheists might take issue with that statement. The Athiest or Buddhist, for example, would say those are commitments to your imagination so why think there's any virtue in living out the mitzvot? I'm afraid you have to take an objective stand here, right?

Let us imagine that Hilkiah vows to G-d that he will not shave his beard. Of course, he will become quite handsome, but that is a secondary issue. Whether the idea was Hilkiah's invention or whether it was immediately inspired by HSHM, Hilkiah is responsible to fulfill his commitment and not shave his beard (so long as the vow is not sin, so as to be repented of rather than fulfilled).

You and Paidion should start a Holy Beard Club. The argument you gave still doesn't seem to align with reality. What if Hilkiah, instead of musing over his facial hair, had vowed to kill every Palestinian who lived on his block out of service to HSHM? Would this commitment be honored just because he made a sincere vow and kept it?

(b) When it comes to predictions of things that later happen, in literature like the Tanakh, these are less than compelling indicators. We are so far removed from the texts that in some cases we may hardly ascertain whether the "prediction" was actually written before the events of the "fulfillment" or not. Likewise, in some cases we may hardly ascertain whether the "prediction" and/or the "fulfillment" have represented fairly the facts on the ground. Beyond this, if the Tanakh is accurate in its portrayal of there being many prophets - "true" and "false" ones - it stands to reason that a certain percentage would be shrewd and/or lucky enough to make successful predictions, and naturally these would be the ones preserved by the recorders of tradition. And finally, there is a major "safety valve" built into the system, in that many predictions without an apparent fulfillment can be salvaged as applying to the future or to some unknown circumstance.

So if Isaiah or Daniel made predictions given to them directly from the Heavenly King, what might we expect those to look like? Couldn't someone always discount them as speculative, lucky or the result of forgery? I know the flavor of modern sholarship is to discount prophecy because it's prophecy but that's not a very open minded way of doing business. But speaking of this - have you, in your studies of Rabbinic teaching, noitced a common or orthodox view of prophecy?

(d) The essential setting of religious experience is not in the past, but in the present; whatever G-d did or did not do in ancient times, we interrelate with him in the here and now. And the essential personnel of religious activity are not giants of yore, but those living in the present world: G-d, neighbor, and self.

I agree with you completely, though God's past experience with people can shed light on how we are to live in the present and treat our neighbor and self.

.

karenprtlnd wrote:Even if Jesus was merely a Rabbi, though manifesting healing of the skin, eyes, the lame, a lunitic, all by the power of the Holy Melchizedek priesthood in the name of God, and not of devils. Even calling forth those who had died back into life again, even calming the sea and a storm, merely by speaking it so......

That he, if, being merely a Rabbi, had been put to death by Roman crucifixion and nailed to a crossed piece of wood like a common criminal. Can not even the Jew ask how could this have happened? Could this one possibly have been what he said he was?

I would have to ask a Jew then I guess.....

I suppose the basic matter here would be that (nearly all) Jews do not regard the gospel accounts as entirely reliable. Many religious figures have amazing stories told about them. And I suppose most Christians would not be inclined to regard Muslim hadith or Hasidic stories about the Baal Shem Tov as entirely reliable.

Compare this selection of miracles attributed to Muhammad: "Did the prophet Muhammad ... work other kinds of miracles?" (it may take the page a while to load...)

And/or this selection: "Miracles of the Baal Shem Tov."

.

I think Karen is asking why this peasant rabbi named Yeshua would be executed by the Romans at all - the implication being that he must have been seen as a serious threat to power or else a depraved criminal. The only records we have about Jesus tell us he had no intention of becoming an earthy king and that he was a kind man to the poor, certainly not a notorious criminal. These are the facts as we have them and without any mention of miracles. Even secular documents confirm at least this much.

So we might find it curious that a peace-loving Rabbi, who had a pretty sizeable following despite not wanting one, would be treated in such a way. His followers, post-mortem, ranged from Jewish scholars to high-ranking women to peasants and fishermen. I don't think we can write off Jesus as a run of the mill rabbi who was simply misunderstood. There were some astounding and bizarre things surrounding his historical existence. It's also nice that you brought up Mohommad, a man who certainly thought well of Jesus.

.

Hello, Karen,

karenprtlnd wrote:
Not so much the attributed miracles and signs that are put upon some posed random religious figure, your right, but that, even the possibility that, a Rabbi had been put to death by such cruel means by Roman Law, an outside concern. Does this not bother anyone about the state of these people?

and

If any Rabbi or Holy Man were publicaly put to death as common criminal (this not being the only example in history of this), what does this say about the state of these people? About Europe even.... Putting down anything that "offends" at the least provocation?

(a) Who are "these people" that you are referring to?

(b) Please forgive my asking - what is your point here?

Hello, Jason,

Please forgive my tardiness in responding to your longer post above. Concerning your shorter post -

Jason wrote:
I think Karen is asking why this peasant rabbi named Yeshua would be executed by the Romans at all - the implication being that he must have been seen as a serious threat to power or else a depraved criminal. The only records we have about Jesus tell us he had no intention of becoming an earthy king and that he was a kind man to the poor, certainly not a notorious criminal. These are the facts as we have them and without any mention of miracles. Even secular documents confirm at least this much.

(a) Could you please reference these secular documents?

(b) The gospels include descriptions of Jesus that could have raised concerns amongst Roman interests. Descent from the line of David and the epithet "son of G-d" would have been royal messianic elements in light of Jewish tradition; these would have been politically loaded in first-century Palestine under Rome. Beyond this, proclamation of the "kingdom of G-d" might have raised eyebrows in Roman quarters; this might have been seen as thinly-veiled political rhetoric, and even if it were not intended to be so, it could be turned to political ends in a heartbeat. If these elements were identified with Jesus during his lifetime, and were not to greater-and/or-lesser extents interpretations or glosses from a later period, then these elements could have precipitated Roman intervention.

This is not even mentioning the problems that would have been attendant to raising a ruckus in the temple, under the nose of a Roman garrison - and within a week of Passover, a Jewish holiday of liberation from oppression.

(c) Even if we were to posit that Jesus himself made no inflammatory moves or comments, Roman interests might have been concerned about how other people would draw upon the figure of Jesus. Utterly independent parties could get excited about Jesus and/or could make calculating use of his figure, resulting either way in an uprising or in increased surreptitious resistance to Roman interests. So even if Jesus were neutral and harmless of himself - which is not a given - Roman interests may have been inclined to nip his potential in the bud.

Jason wrote:
So we might find it curious that a peace-loving Rabbi, who had a pretty sizeable following despite not wanting one, would be treated in such a way. His followers, post-mortem, ranged from Jewish scholars to high-ranking women to peasants and fishermen. I don't think we can write off Jesus as a run of the mill rabbi who was simply misunderstood. There were some astounding and bizarre things surrounding his historical existence.

Astounding and bizarre stories are not unique to Jesus amongst religious figures. They can hardly serve as grounds for placing faith in one figure or another.

Jason wrote:
It's also nice that you brought up Mohommad, a man who certainly thought well of Jesus.

(a) Do you think well of Muhammad's "Jesus"?

(b) Tangentially, one of my favorite books is The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature. It is one of those books that I give copies of to people.

.