Since it IS Christmas time......

the bible presents us with prophetic 'times' in many cases...some examples:Revelation 12:6 mentions a specific number of days 1,260 for a certain event, then verse 14 refers to these same 1,260 days as a time and times and half a time, IOW 3 & 1/2 times. Each of the 'prophetic times' amount to 360 days (3-1/2 x 360 = 1,260).the punishment given to Isreal for failing to trust in God was that for every day that they spied out the land of cannan, they would spend wandering in the wilderness.
Numbers 14:34By the number of the days that YOU spied out the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, YOU will answer for YOUR errors forty yearsEzekiel 4:6 shows another example of the bible rule of a 'day for a year'
And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given youin order to understand much of the OT, we need to understand jewish thought and customs...without that understanding it would be very hard to trully grasp the things that Jesus said and why he said them. Besides, the NT is a revelation of the OT...if we dont understand the OT, then we might miss some very important information in the New. if you want understanding, you need to ask God for it and he'll show. That may sound crazy but believe me, its not. in some way, its absolutely imperative that you do exactly that.
The entire bible, from Genesis - Revelation is linked and intertwined so that you cant have some without the others. If we were missing the OT, it would be impossible to prove that jesus was the messiah, and if we only had the OT, it would be impossible.The New testament is a testimony of the fulfillment of the Old testament. They go hand in hand and you cant understand one, without the other. no apologies are necessary. Your responses show that you are at least thinking about it which is a huge step to understanding it.

Right, and both of those passages specify that the day = a year. You only then go to assume that every other reference in the whole book MUST mean a year. Understandably so. However, many other christians, as I said before, will have nothing to do with judaism. They seem to forget that jesus was a jew and christianity's roots are in judaism. Sorry, I've tried that. He didn't. It's a facade put up by christians as a sort of "get out clause". It's a book. You don't need to understand Dawkins to understand "The Blind Watchmaker". You don't need to ask him to explain it to you. Just so we are clear, and to ensure you understood what I said: you are saying the torah IS the OT? I assumed they were strikingly similar, but I thought they would have to have been different enough for two religions to be so far apart.

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl SaganFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

But this requires one to believe that the prophecy, and your interpretation of it, are accurate, which would require us to know the date independently of the prophecy, otherwise you're just indulging in circular reasoning.As far as the prophecy goes, can you show me any Jewish scholar who identified these dates as corresponding to the birth and death of the Messiah before people decided that Jesus was the Messiah and started performing retrodiction on what is, let's face it, one of the obscurest bits of the Bible?

[Deleted]Edited by roger pearse, : No reason given.

Hello Roger, Welcom to EvC. Its great here. Doesn't 'not relying on hearsay' kind of defeat the purpose of your post? You didn't really support any of your assertions.Rule #4 here:

quote:

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4.Points should be supported with evidence and/or reasoned argumentation. Address rebuttals through the introduction of additional evidence or by enlarging upon the argument. Do not repeat previous points without further elaboration. Avoid bare assertions.

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Not that I'm trying to bust your balls or anything, but I thought it was kinda funny that you supplied unsupported assertions with the charge to not rely on hearsay.Again though, welcome.

Two points to clarify.First: No, the Torah is not the Old Testament. Rather, the Torah is part of the Old Testament. The Torah (AKA "the Pentatuch", AKA "The Five Books of Moses", AKA "The Law") consists of the first five books of the Bible, which we know in English as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (in Hebrew, the names derive from how each starts; eg, Genesis would be "In the beginning").Second point: Peg was not even referring to the Torah. This is for two reasons:1) Daniel, the prophecy under discussion, is not in the Torah, but rather is in Former Prophets, the second of the three sections of the Tanakh (AKA "The Hebrew Bible"), those sections being Torah, Former Prophets, and Writings."Old Testament" is a Christian invention, which the Church had largely derived from the Tanakh, though with some changes, mainly in choice of which books to include and to not include. As you start to study the Bible, you should take a look at the question of the various canons and how the Catholic, Protestant, and Hebrew bibles differ from each other; the Wikipedia article, Old Testament - Wikipedia would be a good place to start.2) And most particularly, Peg was referring to the Talmud, which is the quite literally encyclopedic body of rabbinic literature which represents a few centuries of rabbinic study and commentary on The Law and on other aspects of Judaism in the first centuries CE. And commentaries on those commentaries, and commentaries on those commentaries, etc -- kind of like some threads in this forum. If you want to know how the rabbis approached Scripture (ie, the Tanakh) and attempted to interpret it, go to the Talmud. For more introductory information in this subject, go to the Wikipedia article on it at Talmud - WikipediaBTW, you are going to attempt to discuss what the Bible says, you should study it as you say you intend to. It really is beneficial, as is evidenced by the fact that that is what turned me into an atheist over 45 years ago.Edited by dwise1, : minor clean-up in aisle 3

Thanks dwise for the clarification. I do, but it's not my main goal in life at the moment. I have more important things to do than sit round and give myself more evidence that the bible is a mythbook. I read up here and there, but it's not my main hobby. I read more of the posts here than I comment on, garnering knowledge of the rest of you.

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl SaganFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

[Deleted]Edited by roger pearse, : No reason given.

very trueperhaps what they dont realise is that Jesus didnt create a new religion, christianity is what Judaism was leading to...unfortunately, most of the jews just didnt want it. the bible is not a book. Its more like a jigsaw puzzle with a spiritual picture. In order to see the spiritual picture, you need holy spirit. God doesnt give holy spirit out willy nilly, there are requirements to getting it. The Torah is the 5 books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) These books consist of the 'Law' of Godthe Old Testament is the whole collection of Judaisms writings including the Torah (law) the prophets & the Psalms otherwise known as the 'Hebrew Scriptures' or 'Old Testament'When I say the OT, im refering to the Hebrew scriptures as a whole.And the Hebrew scriptures are almost identicle to the New Testament (Christian writings) because much of what you find in the NT is from the OT. All of Jesus teachings were based entirely on the OT as were the apostles. So really, in order to understand the christian scriptures, we need to know and understand the hebrew.the thing that makes the christian religion different from Judaism is that Chrsitians were free from the requirements of the Law of Moses....these were the legal punishments & animal sacrifices required under the law in order to obtain forgiveness of sins and to be at peace with God. But the christians obtained this forgiveness and peace with God by the sacrifice that Jesus gave of himself.So Judism must look to Moses for its relationship with God, while Christians look to Jesus for its relationship with God. Thats the difference.

interstingly, Luke reported that in 29ce the Jews were in expectation of the Messiahs arrival, this would explain why some wanted to make Jesus a King. It seems that they understood the danial prophecy and knew when to expect the messiah to appear.But you probably dont want lukes testimony, so i'll hunt around and see if i can find some more information about more secular jews and what they may have written.

True, there is a plethora of far better ways to waste one's time, most of which are also more productive and beneficial.It's just that when one chooses to fight on a particular battlefield, one must be prepared for that battlefield. If one isn't prepared, then one should choose a battlefield for which he is prepared.

I did find some quotes by Jews who did beleive Daniels prophecy pointed to the first century as the Messiahs time of arrival. But the articles only quote them and dont provide a reference to where the quote is located. Im having a hard time finding Manasseh's writings in english. Manasseh ben IsraelThere are some who would accept those 70 cycles of seven as saying that after their end the Messiah would come. ... Indeed, all of the Jews who took up arms against the Romans at that time were of that opinion.The Babylonian Talmud has a reference in its Tractate Sanhedrin, folio 97a which speaks directly of the '7 times' prophecy as the seven year cycle at the end of which the son of David [the Messiah] will come. this is certainly a reference to Daniel's prophecy and the Messiah was to appear at the end of it.What you have to take into consideration about the jews of the first century is that the Religious leaders refused to believe that Jesus was the messiah because he said that he was the 'son of God'. this infuriated them because it implied that Jesus was of supernatural origin. They refused to believe this about the Messiah because they had in their mind that the Messiah was to be a man like them.Because the religious leaders rejected him and ensured he was executed, the jewish population was convinced that Jesus could not have possibly been the messiah because if he was, surely the religious leaders would have accepted him as such. This is why there are very few people (other then Jesus followers) who linked Jesus with the messiah. So its not strange that more wasnt written about him by secular jews. Edited by Peg, : fixed

Like I said, a get out clause. "you have to believe in order to understand". In other words, you have to turn your mind off in order to understand. Don't you think being a good person should be sufficient? Why the rigmarole? Maybe I'm not following, but I see this, and what dwise said, and think: "how the hell can you sit there and basically say the jews are wrong?" You are both reading the same texts, but christianity is right? I'm not saying I think either is the right answer. Did jesus not say himself he did not come to change the "law"? But rather, basically enforce it? ONLY christians? Not mankind? How lovely. Are you implying jesus said "fuck you if you don't believe IN me"? Is this god character that pedantic?

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl SaganFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

Point taken. However, I don't think discussing this sort of thing should require 40 years in theology. No better way to learn to swim than to get thrown in the deep end of the pool. I'll learn as I go along. I can take a few licks: if I'm wrong about something, so be it.

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl SaganFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-Carl Sagan

True enough and if you can take the punishment then the more power to you. As for me, I do have much better ways to waste my time, such as learning C# through non-trivial projects and completing a couple dozen more Navy correspondence courses before I'm forced to retire.However, consider that theology and apologetics have been at it for more than a millennium (they will claim two megs, but I think that the past few centuries and even the past century has seen more action than in the previous couple 2 millennia or so). They have been arguing circles around each other and around themselves even for many times longer that you have been around. The same pretty much goes for apologetics, which I believe has had multiple man-millennia applied to it. If the people you go up against are anywhere close to being worth their salt, they will be able to draw on all that wasted man-power and will be able to run circles around anyone who even thinks of going up against them. Doesn't make them right, but they will still be able to chew up their unprepared opposition piecemeal without even breaking into a sweat.Think back to the 1970's and the travelling "creation science" debate show. Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. Duane Gish of the ICR and other professional creationists would go on the debate circuit and their local supporters would recruit local "evolutionists" (AKA "evilutionists") to debate these professionals in a skewed format dictated by the creationists themselves -- Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE describes the situation in her "Debates and the Globetrotters" (No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/debating/globetrotters.html. What happened was that all those opponents entered into the fray thinking that they would be talking science and instead they got hit by creationist nonsense. Now, of course they knew that what the creationists were saying was nonsense, but how do you communicate that to the audience (which would usually be filled by creationists) in the extremely limited time that you are given? A large part of the problem was that these opponents were hearing those outrageously false creationist claims for the first time. So what happened were the Committees of Correspondence (which led to the creation of the NCSE as a national clearinghouse for the CC's). Local teachers and scientists who had been burned by creationists started reading the creationist literature, researching their claims, and sharing their findings with each other. As a result, by 1980 the tide had turned and creationists started losing the debates.The point is that in order to argue against someone, you need to know what their position is and how to argue against it. Since those you would be arguing against have a massive body of information/misinformation to draw from, you would need to be familiar with that massive body of information to know how to respond. Yes, you could just throw yourself against their claims, but how effective would that be? For a popular analogy, consider going up against a Death Star without knowing about that 3-foot opening that represents its only vulnerability.