"Nowhere does the Bible predict that the Messiah will be born to a virgin.[/quote]
This is incorrect. If you look at the MT (which came after Jesus) manuscripts the Jews changed several verses from virgin to young girl. If you look at the Septuagint (which Jesus, the Apostles, and Hellenistic Jews used) it does plainly state that a Virgin will give birth to a Son.
Love the revisionist history. If you’re going to use such horrid source, I won’t bother commenting on the rest of it.[/quote]
With respect…not so fast!
First, where is the evidence that the Masoretes substituted whole words in the MT? Mistakes, haplographs, yes…but whole words?
As evidence, let’s look at that phrase in Isaiah 7:14, almah, translated by some as “a virgin.” Are there counter-examples to indicate that “young woman” is a better translation?
Well, yes. Refer to the roughly contemporaneous I Kings 1:1-3:
“1. And king David was old, he came into his old age, and they covered him with clothes, but he was not warmed.
2. And his servants said to him, “Let them seek for my lord the king a young girl, a virgin, and she shall stand before the king, and she shall be to him a warmer, and she shall lie in your lap, and it shall be warm for my lord the king.”
3. And they sought a beautiful young girl throughout the borders of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunemitess and brought her to the king.”
The Hebrew is clear: “na’arah btolah” literally “young-girl-virgin.” This is not a unique usage; see also II Kings 5:2-4.
“Almah” is not used here, but the same term-“na’arah” is used to signify a young girl. Further, it is clear that when Deuteronomic historians wanted to signify the state of “vriginity,” they did so explicitly, in the use of the root adjective “btol,” e.g. Deut 22:14-23, where there are a handful of references to virginity, using “btol”–and “almah” does not appear once.
(One may argue here that Isaiah was not using the terms found in Deut through II Kings, but why would he abandon this particular well established and contemporary term for “virgin” to use a novel one?)
Last, relying on the Septuagint as a source for proper interpretation is hazardous here. The Sept., of course, is an old and revered Greek translation, but it was only an informed translation and not meticulous in many nuanced details. Both the Sept and MT are based on an older text, as is the Targum Onkelos, contemporary to the 1st Century, and which does not use the term "btolah in place of “almah” in Isaiah 7. I do not believe, then, that the Masoretes intentionally made a substitution which should be conveniently translated as “virgin.”
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Chris, I did finally “sift” - did not read completely - through your post and you know what it reminds me of? The thread in GAL where grown men were arguing about fictional superhero powers and which one could defeat the other. You’re not going to get anywhere with me.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NEEDED TO BIRTH HIMSELF THRU A HUMAN WOMAN (AN ALLEGED VIRGIN) TO COME TEACH US A LESSON THAT 2000 YEARS LATER STILL DIVIDES THE WORLD. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN “INSPIRED” VERSIONS OF VIRGIN BIRTHS AND RESURRECTIONS ANY MORE THAN I BELIEVE THE PAGAN TALES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS.
Save your breath sir. [/quote]
So I take it you don’t believe in the Diffusionist theory?
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Chris, I did finally “sift” - did not read completely - through your post and you know what it reminds me of? The thread in GAL where grown men were arguing about fictional superhero powers and which one could defeat the other. You’re not going to get anywhere with me.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NEEDED TO BIRTH HIMSELF THRU A HUMAN WOMAN (AN ALLEGED VIRGIN) TO COME TEACH US A LESSON THAT 2000 YEARS LATER STILL DIVIDES THE WORLD. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN “INSPIRED” VERSIONS OF VIRGIN BIRTHS AND RESURRECTIONS ANY MORE THAN I BELIEVE THE PAGAN TALES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS.
Save your breath sir. [/quote]
He didn’t come to teach a lesson. He didn’t come to bring peace.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Chris, I did finally “sift” - did not read completely - through your post and you know what it reminds me of? The thread in GAL where grown men were arguing about fictional superhero powers and which one could defeat the other. You’re not going to get anywhere with me.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NEEDED TO BIRTH HIMSELF THRU A HUMAN WOMAN (AN ALLEGED VIRGIN) TO COME TEACH US A LESSON THAT 2000 YEARS LATER STILL DIVIDES THE WORLD. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN “INSPIRED” VERSIONS OF VIRGIN BIRTHS AND RESURRECTIONS ANY MORE THAN I BELIEVE THE PAGAN TALES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS.
Save your breath sir. [/quote]
He didn’t come to teach a lesson. He didn’t come to bring peace. [/quote]
I do find it interesting that many agnostic/ atheists reject God or scripture based on the fact that God doesn’t do what they think he should do. Why didn’t Jesus simply rid the world of evil? Why does God allow bad things? If God wants us to be a certain way, why doesn’t he just come down and tell us himself personally? Why isn’t he more obvious?
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Chris, I did finally “sift” - did not read completely - through your post and you know what it reminds me of? The thread in GAL where grown men were arguing about fictional superhero powers and which one could defeat the other. You’re not going to get anywhere with me.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NEEDED TO BIRTH HIMSELF THRU A HUMAN WOMAN (AN ALLEGED VIRGIN) TO COME TEACH US A LESSON THAT 2000 YEARS LATER STILL DIVIDES THE WORLD. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN “INSPIRED” VERSIONS OF VIRGIN BIRTHS AND RESURRECTIONS ANY MORE THAN I BELIEVE THE PAGAN TALES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS.
Save your breath sir. [/quote]
He didn’t come to teach a lesson. He didn’t come to bring peace. [/quote]
I do find it interesting that many agnostic/ atheists reject God or scripture based on the fact that God doesn’t do what they think he should do. Why didn’t Jesus simply rid the world of evil? Why does God allow bad things? If God wants us to be a certain way, why doesn’t he just come down and tell us himself personally? Why isn’t he more obvious? [/quote]
This is true and its one of the BIGGEST fallacies that many people (even my family) try to do: anthropomorphize God.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
I have been unable to find a good answer to this question online.
Is there an established Christian doctrine that explains why Jesus was sent to man at that specific time and place? Why not a thousand years earlier or later? Was it something special in that era, or perhaps the fact that man had finally descended into such a level of destitute sin that it was deemed “the right time”?
Is the Catholic view different from the Protestant, etc. ?
Thanks![/quote] Prophecy of Seventy Weeks - Wikipedia I hold what the article calls the futurist school premillennial position. I was taught the historicist viewpoint while growing up but I don’t think it makes much sense.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Chris, I did finally “sift” - did not read completely - through your post and you know what it reminds me of? The thread in GAL where grown men were arguing about fictional superhero powers and which one could defeat the other. You’re not going to get anywhere with me.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NEEDED TO BIRTH HIMSELF THRU A HUMAN WOMAN (AN ALLEGED VIRGIN) TO COME TEACH US A LESSON THAT 2000 YEARS LATER STILL DIVIDES THE WORLD. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN “INSPIRED” VERSIONS OF VIRGIN BIRTHS AND RESURRECTIONS ANY MORE THAN I BELIEVE THE PAGAN TALES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS.
Save your breath sir. [/quote]
He didn’t come to teach a lesson. He didn’t come to bring peace. [/quote]
I do find it interesting that many agnostic/ atheists reject God or scripture based on the fact that God doesn’t do what they think he should do. Why didn’t Jesus simply rid the world of evil? Why does God allow bad things? If God wants us to be a certain way, why doesn’t he just come down and tell us himself personally? Why isn’t he more obvious? [/quote]
You’re on your way to building a strawman and you’re knee deep on your way to being disingenuous by quoting my post for your strawman, knowing that on many occasions that I have been explicit that I do not deny “God”!
I reject some scripture on the basis of the corruption and fantasy of man. I also wholeheartedly accept other scriptures on the basis of one religion or another’s rejection of them ! LOL
I didn’t ponder aloud any questions about vanquishing evil - I did state that why would “God” emulate pagan mythology with fantastic tales of virgin births, incarnation and resurrection - heck, even the 3 days is steeped in the occult and is unoriginal.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Chris, I did finally “sift” - did not read completely - through your post and you know what it reminds me of? The thread in GAL where grown men were arguing about fictional superhero powers and which one could defeat the other. You’re not going to get anywhere with me.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NEEDED TO BIRTH HIMSELF THRU A HUMAN WOMAN (AN ALLEGED VIRGIN) TO COME TEACH US A LESSON THAT 2000 YEARS LATER STILL DIVIDES THE WORLD. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN “INSPIRED” VERSIONS OF VIRGIN BIRTHS AND RESURRECTIONS ANY MORE THAN I BELIEVE THE PAGAN TALES OF VIRGIN BIRTHS.
Save your breath sir. [/quote]
He didn’t come to teach a lesson. He didn’t come to bring peace. [/quote]
I do find it interesting that many agnostic/ atheists reject God or scripture based on the fact that God doesn’t do what they think he should do. Why didn’t Jesus simply rid the world of evil? Why does God allow bad things? If God wants us to be a certain way, why doesn’t he just come down and tell us himself personally? Why isn’t he more obvious? [/quote]
This is true and its one of the BIGGEST fallacies that many people (even my family) try to do: anthropomorphize God. [/quote]
WRONG!
Your religion wholeheartedly created a tale of an anthropomorphic God! Religion made him:
Likened to “man’s image” - man was made in “God’s image”;
Made him decidedly human by imbuing him with anger, spite, jealousy, et als.;
Created a fantastic tale of a virgin birth and incarnation thru man (a myth preexisting your religion and common to a number of different beliefs)…
Do I need to continue?
My idea of God has nothing to do with anthropomorphism. I do notice you guys haven’t touched the rebuttal the virgin nonsense. Eating around the edges, building strawmen.
My belief is that Adam and all early prophets had a knowledge of Christ’s birth, including the virgin detail, thus, as they taught their children, the idea became corrupted and applied to several varied traditions.
Which is more likely? That several civilizations independently developed a myth, or that they inherited it from a common tradition more ancient than they? It’s debatable.
[quote]byukid wrote:
My belief is that Adam and all early prophets had a knowledge of Christ’s birth, including the virgin detail, thus, as they taught their children, the idea became corrupted and applied to several varied traditions.
Which is more likely? That several civilizations independently developed a myth, or that they inherited it from a common tradition more ancient than they? It’s debatable.[/quote]
Hm this reminds me of Jung. similar archetypes in different cultures etc.
There is a couple of scenarios`s that is likely:
scenario 1. the virgin birth of a devine man myth is originally a semittic myth, and the indo-europeen cultures that had contact with semites adopted it.
scenario 2. The opposit of scenario 1.
scenario 3. the said myth origins are from africa or east asia, and both semittic cultures and indo-european cultures adopted it later.
scenario 4. The said myth originated on its own all over the world.
That is the four most likely scenarios from my perspectiv.
About Adam: it is as likely as if Ask( the first male in norse-mythology ) did do the same.
[quote]byukid wrote:
My belief is that Adam and all early prophets had a knowledge of Christ’s birth, including the virgin detail, thus, as they taught their children, the idea became corrupted and applied to several varied traditions.
Which is more likely? That several civilizations independently developed a myth, or that they inherited it from a common tradition more ancient than they? It’s debatable.[/quote]
Since the “pagan” myths predated Jesus, following your logic, there were many virgin births of “god-men” or, there were none. Which is it?
[quote]byukid wrote:
My belief is that Adam and all early prophets had a knowledge of Christ’s birth, including the virgin detail, thus, as they taught their children, the idea became corrupted and applied to several varied traditions.
Which is more likely? That several civilizations independently developed a myth, or that they inherited it from a common tradition more ancient than they? It’s debatable.[/quote]
Since the “pagan” myths predated Jesus, following your logic, there were many virgin births of “god-men” or, there were none. Which is it?[/quote]
The myths predated Jesus yes, but they had a common origin. Then, in these cultures either the rumor was promulgated about someone earlier, or was ascribed to some particularly ambitious men.
"Nowhere does the Bible predict that the Messiah will be born to a virgin.[/quote]
This is incorrect. If you look at the MT (which came after Jesus) manuscripts the Jews changed several verses from virgin to young girl. If you look at the Septuagint (which Jesus, the Apostles, and Hellenistic Jews used) it does plainly state that a Virgin will give birth to a Son.
Love the revisionist history. If you’re going to use such horrid source, I won’t bother commenting on the rest of it.[/quote]
With respect…not so fast!
First, where is the evidence that the Masoretes substituted whole words in the MT? Mistakes, haplographs, yes…but whole words?[/quote]
By Israel Adam Shamir
[A Talk at Rhodes Conference, 8-12 October 2009]
They say that at a press-conference before departing from Israel, President George W. Bush was asked: â??What impressed you most of all in Israel?â?? The Texan replied: â??The Bible in my room. It was in your tongue! Despite the wars and terrorism, you did not begrudge the effort and translated the Holy Bible into Hebrew in such a short time! That impressed me the mostâ??.
Besides ridiculing proverbial Texan ignorance, this Israeli joke aims to remind us that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and every Old Testament book that you find in your hotel room is a translation from the ancient Hebrew text. There is a far-reaching implication: the Jews are the guardians and keepers of a primary sacred text of Christendom. This implication is subliminally or even consciously accepted by the West.
The consequences of this implication go far beyond textual details. Indiaâ??s Brahmins are guardians of the Vedas, and this brings them influence, money, ministerial positions. Likewise in the West, the Jewish guardians of the Scripture possess by this right such extraordinary influence â?? totally out-of-sync with their demographic numbers â?? that canâ??t be explained in any other way.
Money, clannishness, media ownership â?? all are frequently mentioned among the reasons for this disproportionate Jewish influence. Here’s the problem, though: This influence is greatest in the US in particular and in the West in general. The Jews of Serbia and Greece, of Turkey and Syria, of India and China are not poor either, and are no less clannish, but they are much less influential. We may propose a different reason, then: the Texan-Israeli joke wouldnâ??t have been immediately understood in these countries, because for Muslims, for Hindus, for the Chinese as well as for Orthodox Christians, Jews have no sacred function â?? they are not the guardians of a holy text. Non-Christians have their own scriptures. And for Orthodox Christians, the Old Testament is the Septuagint, the Greek text composed some two hundred years before Christ and one thousand years before the present Jewish Bible (called MT, Masoretic Text) was completed.
Though the schism between the Eastern and the Western churches is usually connected with the filioque controversy, the true bifurcation point between the Christian East and the Christian West is located in their choice of the primary text (aside from the New Testament). Westerners (Catholics and Protestants) use the Old Testament they translated from the Jewish MT; Easterners use the Greek text as the original. This is an extremely important difference. When St Paul said that the opposites are united in Christ, he mentioned man and woman, Jew and Hellene (Galatians 3:28). Indeed, the ideal Jew and Hellene are as opposed to each other as the ideal man and woman, and the Jewish and Hellenic texts are equally opposed to each other. Moreover, translations from either of these texts carry the imprint of the original spirit with them. The Hellenic spirit found its expression in the Septuagint, while the Judaic spirit was expressed in the Masoretic Hebrew text, the MT. Christianity as a whole treads a narrow path between its Judaic and Hellenic tendencies, which are locked in an eternal fight like the Yin and the Yang. Their choice of primary text for the Old Testament caused the Eastern churches to favour the Hellenic, and the Western the Judaic tendency.
Before continuing, a full disclosure: until fairly recently, I was not aware of the problem, and like everybody else, I thought that the Old Testament in every language was a translation from the Hebrew MT original. A few months ago, I visited Moscow where I thoroughly enjoyed the fabulous hospitality of the Muscovites, who can turn every friendly meeting over a couple of vodkas into a Platonic symposium â?? a banquet of reason and a celebration of the soul. Once, my friend Michael, a Moscow University teacher, told me that a famous Starets wanted to receive me. â??Starets,â?? the Russian equivalent of Greek gerÅ?n, or â??elderâ??, means, in Eastern Orthodoxy, a monastic spiritual leader â?? a charismatic spiritual guide who can aid others in attaining spiritual progress and success, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica tell us. The Starets is well known in Moscow as a confessor and heart-reader â?? a man who understands the human soul and its way to salvation. I was immensely touched and flattered by the invitation, for people normally wait months on end to see him and receive his blessing. Though I have met with princes of the Church â?? with bishops and cardinals, with the monks of Athos and Jerusalem â?? the elders are the hidden heart of the faith.
We drove out of Moscow to the monastery at four a.m. The road was empty, and there were only a few pilgrims in front of the monastery waiting for the heavy gates to open. This is neither the time nor the place to relate everything that happened at this meeting, but Iâ??ll tell you the most important thing: the Starets told me of his desire to publish the Old Testament in Hebrew, corrected in accordance with the Queen Elizabeth Bible of the Russian Orthodox Church. At first, I was deeply shocked and confused. The Queen Elizabeth Bible (1751), or the QEB, is a translation, and a translation of the Greek translation into the Old Church Slavonic. Wasnâ??t this rather too daring a project, to correct the original according to a translation? Its scope would eclipse any post-modernist project!
Here another, even fuller disclosure is called for: the idea of translating a translation or even reconstructing the original according to a translation was not totally foreign to me. Translations are not machine-made neutral reproductions; they carry with them the twin loads of the original culture and of the translatorâ??s culture. A translation can be translated. I was aware of this complexity - some years ago I had translated the Odyssey into Russian from the English translations of Lawrence (1932) and Rieu (1946) instead of from the Greek original. (It was published by Aletheia, the Heidegger-inspired St Petersburg publishers of Greek classics in AD 2000). I did it that way in order to convey Jorge Luis Borgesâ?? idea that for the modern reader Joyceâ??s Ulysses precedes Homerâ??s Odyssey. The English post-Joyce translations of the Odyssey carried this subliminal message, and I tried to preserve it in my translation into Russian. (More on this in Russian on Одиссея )
The longer I considered the words of the Starets, the more sense they made to me. Practically, he was proposing to reconstruct the H70, the lost Hebrew original of the Septuagint, while using the QEB to select between numerous versions. You will see soon why this could begin the reversal of a long-term Judaisation and degradation process, and start the healing of the schism between the West and the East, while at the same time helping the Jews to overcome their hubris and to make peace with the nations. The Jews have translated the Bible into the languages of the nations in order to influence them; the world is indebted to them, and it’s time to pay them back by giving them the true original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, free from censorship and later additions, just as it was read in the days of the Second Temple.
Why will this bookish project influence the real world? Sacred matters influence our world far more than is acceptable to admit in polite society. The dummies believe that all things are done out of pecuniary considerations, but in truth, it is spiritual authority that decides. The world based on the Jewish Bible is not the same as would be a world based on the Greek Bible. Its priorities would be different. Even the texts themselves are different. The Hebrew text used today by Jews (and by tiny communities of Hebrew-speaking Christians), usually called MT (Masoretic text) is not the same text that was read by Christ and His apostles.
If you open the New Testament youâ??ll see that its references to the Old Testament do not fit. For instance, Matt. 12:21 quotes Isaiah: â??in His name will the Gentiles trustâ??. But if you look up Isaiah 42:4, youâ??ll see something completely different: â??the isles shall wait for his lawâ??. Or (Acts 7:14) Stephen says “seventy-five” souls went down to Egypt with Jacob. But look up your Old Testament (Gen. 46:27; Deut. 10:22) â?? it says that only seventy people went to Egypt. This does not mean that the translators of King James, or any other translators of the Old Testament, made a mistake. They translated correctly, but from the wrong version, from the MT, while Jesus, His apostles and the New Testament writers in general had read and quoted the Septuagint (LXX) or its Hebrew Source (H70).
The transposition of the MT in place of the Septuagint (LXX) or its Hebrew Source (H70), making it the source for all subsequent Western translations, was the biggest coup the Jewish scholars ever pulled off, and this is the deep-lying cause of Judaisation of the West.
The MT is not particularly old. The oldest complete manuscript of the MT â?? The Leningrad Codex (1008) - is just over a thousand years old, whilst the LXX is much, much older. The LXX translation was created in a very different era â?? not only before Christ, but even before the Maccabee revolt. In those days, in the third century BC, the Hellenistic world embraced Palestine, Egypt, Syria and their neighbours. The Jews were integrating well into this Hellenic world, and the long struggle between the two spirits of the ancient faith of Israel had just started:
One was the inward-looking nationalist exclusivist spirit. It claimed private ownership over the Divine Law and exclusive access to the Creator for the Chosen of Israel. A stranger reading the Law was to be executed. A translation of the Bible into Greek was a most serious sin, equivalent to fashioning a golden calf (Ex 32:4), they said.
The other spirit proclaimed universality and led to Christ. The Law and Godâ??s mercy were to be given to all.
In modern terms, these are the spirits of privatisation and nationalisation. The battle was fought in the three seats of ancient wisdom, - Alexandria, Babylon and Jerusalem. Alexandria was the most universalistic, Babylon the most proprietary â?? Jerusalem was their battleground. In Alexandria, a happy synthesis of Jewish and Hellenic ideas was reached in the translation of Seventy Elders appointed by the High Priest. Thus came the revelation of Israel to the world, preparing the way for Christ.
This translation was nothing short of miraculous. The translators consisted of six from each tribe of Israel, making altogether seventy-two. But the translation is called the Translation of the Seventy because seventy is the numeric value of â??Sodâ?? â?? â??Secretâ?? in Hebrew. The Seventy revealed the secret that the exclusivist Jews did not want to share. â??A curse upon him who reveals our secret to the Gentilesâ??, they had written on the floor of the En-Gedi Synagogue. Three times the daughters of Jerusalem were charged â??not to stir or awaken love until she pleasesâ?? (Song of Songs 3) and this meant â??do not disclose our secret to Gentilesâ??, says the Talmud. Furious at the disclosure of the secret, the exclusivist Jews destroyed the Hebrew Source of the Septuagint. Every single copy perished. In Jerusalem, the nationalist Jews slaughtered the Hellenised proto-Christian Jews in the Maccabean revolt.
With the coming of Christ, the free Judeo-Hellenic spirit once again found its expression which was hated by the nationalists, who embarked on the long road to regaining full control over the Scripture. For hundreds of years, the scribes worked over the Old Testament, taking advantage of its ambiguous consonant readings, until they eventually achieved a text we know today. Its main paradigm was changed: if the old text led to Christ, the personal/universal Saviour, the new text implanted the nationalist concept of a messiah of and for the people of Israel. The nations of the world were to be seen as sinful semi-animals who had no access to God. The name â??Jewsâ?? stuck with this small fanatic band, while the Hellenised Jews became known as ‘Christians’ and were no longer called â??Jewsâ??. What was previously a battle between two schools of thought within the Judaic framework, became known as the battle between Judaic and Christian spirits.
The exclusivist Jews could not destroy the Septuagint â?? there were too many copies extant among non-Jews, and the LXX had been spread around and had succeeded in bringing the nations to Christ. That is why, in their attempt to force the genie of free spirit back into its bottle, the Jews made - one after another - three translations of the Old Testament into Greek to counter the LXX. These translations were made from their proto-Masoretic version, and were quite tendentious. â??The Virginâ?? in the prophecy became â??a young womanâ?? in their rendering. Since then, the Jews have made and/or influenced dozens of translations into all languages, while ferociously defending their own Hebrew version, the MT, as the only legitimate primary source.
The young church had not worried overmuch, as they considered Hebrew only a language of the scribes, whilst cultured people used Greek, and the local masses spoke Aramaic. The Church dismissed the Hebrew version as an empty cocoon shed by a beautiful butterfly. LXX was considered the God-inspired text, and on its basis, the New Testament and the works of the Fathers of the Church were created. The Eastern Orthodox Church still prefers the Septuagint to the MT, for the translation of the Seventy Elders had been kept in the Church and by the Church, whereas the Hebrew text had been kept and prepared by anti-Christian forces.
When later Christian scholars became interested in the Old Testament, and compared the Judaic translations with the LXX, they unavoidably resorted to the Jewish Bible, for by that time the Jews had the edited Hebrew manuscripts and tools for their interpretation. As you will recall, the H70, the old Hebrew Source of the Septuagint had been destroyed by the nationalists. A great scholar, Origen, therefore turned to the Jews for advice, and they gave him plenty of advice - only their advice was based on their understanding of their text. Origen decided to improve the Septuagint and emended the LXX according to the Jewish Bible of his day. Some of these emendations made their way into the body of the LXX. Still, the Eastern Church remained rather safe, for the Septuagint remained the official version of the Old Testament for the Greek-speaking East from Constantinople to Alexandria.
But the West did not read Greek. For a long while, the West used the Old Latin translations from the Septuagint; the unity of the Church remained strong, but the translations were weak. Eventually Jerome, a wonderful man and a great scholar, who lived for 34 years in Palestine, decided to correct the Old Latin translations and update them. He even began his work using the Septuagint. Afterwards, though, he followed Origen and turned to the Jews for their advice and interpretation. That was his undoing. He got carried away, and took the fateful step that made the West susceptible to Jewish influence. He parted with LXX and made a brand new translation into Latin â?? from the Hebrew Bible of his day, the proto-MT. The Jews surely liked the result, but St Augustine was shocked by this deed, and wrote in The City of God:
Contemporaries condemned Jerome, as they noticed that he slowly began to appear more and more Jewish in his positions as he got older and his Jewish friends began to have more influence. One of his former friends, Rufinus, publicly attacked Jerome’s Jewish leanings. Jerome, in response to this work of Rufinus, freely admitted the truth of Rufinus’s claims. Jerome wrote in his own Apology: “There is nothing to blame in my getting the help of a Jew in translating from the Hebrew.” He said that he â??did not understand how Jewish interpretations here and there would undermine the faith of Christians.â?? In this way the Jews managed to plant the seed that would eventually blossom into the acceptance of the Hebrew MT and the virtual abolition of the Greek Septuagint, the authentic Christian Scriptures of Christ and His Apostles.
A reason why Jerome, and Origen before him, accepted the Jewish version was their lack of historical perspective. Perspective in the visual art was discovered in 15th century, while the historical perspective was not known until the seventeenth century. Until that time, mankind was not aware of the torrent of Time. Don Quixote considered Achilles and Hector to have been knights like himself or like Lancelot. The Crusaders had thought the Muslim mosque of Jerusalem was the Temple of Solomon. For Origen and Jerome, the Old Testament was the Old Testament, and the Jews were the Jews. They did not understand that the Hebrew text of the OT had been changed since the days of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, when the Septuagint was produced. Some of these changes were tendentious, others were due to scribal errors, and still others were the result of misunderstanding.
Orthodox Bible scholar Nicolas Glubokovsky wrote: â??The Greek translation reproduced an independent Hebrew textual type that was not severely censored and redacted by rabbinic authorities. That is why LXX and MT do differ profoundly, and their readings of messianic and Christian spirit are at loggerheadsâ??.
Origen and Jerome believed the myth about careful Jewish stewardship of the OT scrolls. They did not know that the Jews had destroyed the manuscripts of other types. The Church had no such practice, and at Jeromeâ??s time there were â??tot exemplaria paene quot codicesâ?? â?? as many versions as there are codices. Islam, however, followed the Jewish way, and all differing versions of the Koran were destroyed, so only one type survived.
Jerome planted the seed of Jewish influence, and it had made its major inroads by the Ninth century, when the Vulgate of Jerome became universally accepted. Still, the Old Testament was not widely read â?? Latin was not universally understood and its influence remained somewhat limited â?? that is, until the Protestants began to spread their translations of the Old Testament in the vernacular.
The immediate result can be likened to an outbreak of a long-sleeping disease: Previously unheard-of devastation and massacres of civilians during the Thirty Yearsâ?? War were influenced by spread of the MT-based vernacular translations, as the nations were infected by its exclusivist nationalist spirit unknown in Europe until that time. The King James Bible was translated from the MT, and the result was amazing: the Brits began to consider themselves a racial new Israel of the flesh, as opposed to the Church being regarded the New Israel of the spirit. They fought the Church, and inflicted the ethnic cleansing prescribed in the book of Joshua on their colonies in the New World. They privatised the commons and turned ordinary British people into paupers. The German Bible translated from the MT turned the Germans into ferocious nationalists and eventually prepared the ground for Hitler. Thus, the MT and its translations had an enormous, even magical, effect. The petard placed in the second century below the walls of the Christian society went off!
The Jews became the collective Merlin behind the throne of a British King Arthur. People dissatisfied with this pre-eminence of the Jews left Christianity for various heathen cults, or became engrossed with the material side of the world. The Judaisation of the West and the degradation of its spirit accelerated.
Today, the translation battle continues as unabatedly and as one-sidedly as ever. The Jews produce dozens of translations into many languages, each more Judaic than the last. Some are openly Jewish, like the Jewish Publication Society Bible, others are crypto-Jewish or â??Christian-Zionistâ??, like the Scofield Reference Bible that reduces the Christian faith to â??love of Jews and of the Jewish stateâ??. This long, hard work on these corrosive translations is the real Conspiracy of the Elders of Zion.
Russia was the latest to submit to the Judaising influence of the MT translation. Until the late 19th century, the Russians were exposed only to the QEB, the Old Slavonic translation from the Septuagint, and they were pious, religious, loyal to the throne. In the late 19th century, the pro-British Masonic Bible Society had published a translation of the MT into the Russian vernacular. Very soon, the Jewish influence in Russia began to rise. However, the Russian Church did not accept this Judaised Russian Bible for liturgical purposes, and continues to pray and read from the QEB. This caused a tragic rift between the LXX-orientated Church and MT-induced reading public, a rift that came to forefront with the Revolution.
Let me add yet another disclosure: As an ex-Jew who was received into the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, I am acutely and personally aware of the continuous struggle of these two spirits in the world. Will the Christian world submit to Judaisation, or will the Jews accept Christ? A few days ago, in a church in the Holy Land, I saw a Bible in Hebrew published by a Christian society for the purpose of bringing the Jews to Christ. However, the Old Testament had been reproduced from the MT. If a Jew sees that Christians actually use the Jewish text prepared by anti-Christian Jewish Rabbis, how can he ever accept the Christian interpretation? The encounter of Jews and Christians should bring Jews to the Church, not lead to Christians leaving the Church in dismay.
Proselytising efforts usually fail because the Jews consider themselves the guardians of the Scripture, while they should be seen as keepers of their own distinct text on a par with the Aramaic Peshitta, the Ethiopian Bible or the Samaritan Torah.
The MT is the petard laid centuries ago under the besieged City of Godâ??s fortifications. The reconstruction of the Hebrew OT according to the LXX would hoist the Jewish sappers on their own petard and relieve the siege. A truly Christian Hebrew Bible has now become a distinct possibility. The H70, the Hebrew Source of the LXX, can be reconstructed on the basis of the textological discoveries of the last hundred years, with the help of the Qumran scrolls. We can do it â?? we can do it fairly quickly and fairly accurately. We intend to do it, with your help. Such a publication will become the turning point in this millennial struggle. The battle will be carried into the adversaryâ??s territory for the first time since A.D. 128, when Rabbi Akibaâ??s disciple and convert Aquila produced his Judaic translation of the OT into Greek. If this project had been attempted by the young Church in the second century, the Jewish influence today would be the same as the Samaritan one â?? negligible. Now it is late, but not too late.
People who doubt the very possibility of reconstructing H70 usually refer to the multiple interpretations and versions within the sea of LXX manuscripts. These objections are not sincere. The Church has an exact answer regarding interpretations and versions, and we can trust Her inspiration. In our dark times of confusion, we can follow the interpretation of the Queen Elizabeth Bible, as I said in the beginning.
Why the Queen Elizabeth Bible, and not any other? Why not the Greek text? The QE Bible was prepared in the least Judaised country of the Christian world, in 18th century Russia, under the royal protection of its least Judaised queen. Queen Elizabeth was asked to permit Jewish traders to enter Russia, as they would bring her much profit, and she replied: â??I wish no profit from Christâ??s enemies.â?? Western ideas (and in their guise, Judaic influence) made few inroads then. The QE Bible was edited by churchmen, not by scientists, and edited within the full view of the Church tradition. The QE Bible can be likened to a mammoth unearthed in the frozen tundra â?? its corpse survived for millennia because it was protected by permafrost. One may dislike permafrost and prefer the tropics, but permafrost is better for preservation. Likewise, one may prefer more Westernised, more Judaised Christianity, but if one wants to discover the pure old Hellene tradition, one can turn to Queen Elizabeth.
The Septuagint has plural interpretations and various versions. The QEB has the great advantage of being a single text based on the LXX and fully approved by the Church. Its language is lucid, its meaning is clear, and this allows us to find and reconstruct its lost Hebrew source. (However, other possible approaches could be considered.) The reconstruction of the Pentateuch can be completed soon â?? with your help.
[quote]byukid wrote:
My belief is that Adam and all early prophets had a knowledge of Christ’s birth, including the virgin detail, thus, as they taught their children, the idea became corrupted and applied to several varied traditions.
Which is more likely? That several civilizations independently developed a myth, or that they inherited it from a common tradition more ancient than they? It’s debatable.[/quote]
Since the “pagan” myths predated Jesus, following your logic, there were many virgin births of “god-men” or, there were none. Which is it?[/quote]
The myths predated Jesus yes, but they had a common origin. Then, in these cultures either the rumor was promulgated about someone earlier, or was ascribed to some particularly ambitious men. [/quote]
Again, so I ask you; was there more than one virgin birth or none? And was Jesus’ “virgin birth” a result of perpetuating a myth?
"Nowhere does the Bible predict that the Messiah will be born to a virgin.[/quote]
This is incorrect. If you look at the MT (which came after Jesus) manuscripts the Jews changed several verses from virgin to young girl. If you look at the Septuagint (which Jesus, the Apostles, and Hellenistic Jews used) it does plainly state that a Virgin will give birth to a Son.
Love the revisionist history. If you’re going to use such horrid source, I won’t bother commenting on the rest of it.[/quote]
With respect…not so fast!
First, where is the evidence that the Masoretes substituted whole words in the MT? Mistakes, haplographs, yes…but whole words?[/quote]
By Israel Adam Shamir
[A Talk at Rhodes Conference, 8-12 October 2009]
[/quote]
Apparently, your denial, or desperation, or bias knows no boundaries. A few interesting tidbits about the “author” above that you chose to quote as a reference:
“is regarded as a Holocaust denier.”
"The writers of these articles allege he has connections to antisemitic publications and groups. Pollard calls him “rabid anti-Semite.”
“In 2004 Shamir was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem”
“He has made statements opposing both Zionism and Judaism,[13] has denied the Holocaust and has been widely declared an antisemite.”
"He is critical of what he considers a Jewish quest for world hegemony, having written, “Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; the world is. Palestine is just the place for world state headquarters; necessary, for otherwise the people of Europe wouldn’t be magnetised like a rabbit in the headlights of a car.”[5]
Shamir has argued that there is organized Jewish control of the media and public discourse: “The rich Jews buy media so it will cover up their (and their brethren’s) misdeeds. The Jews in the media are giving protection to the rich Jews. … In the US, even in Western Europe, no view can be proposed to the general public unless approved (after being vetted and corrected) by a Jewish group.”[6]
Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation, described a visit to Shamir’s web site:
I spent a few hours on www.israelshamir.net and learned that: "the Jews" foisted capitalism, advertising and consumerism on harmonious and modest Christian Europe; were behind Stalin's famine in Ukraine; control the banks, the media and many governments; and that "Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; the world is." There are numerous guest articles by Holocaust deniers, aka "historical revisionists."[16]
Shamir is a supporter of the proposed one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[17]"
"Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg noted Wikileaks’ ties to Shamir among the reasons he quit the organization.[8] Domscheit-Berg described Shamir as a “famous Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.”
Chris, I’m LMMFAO over here. THIS is who you decided to hitch your wagon to relative to a bible discussion? Do you or your Church also deny the holocaust? Just wondering. And, what exactly are HIS QUALIFICATIONS such that he is quote and reference worthy? You. Have. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
From the sounds of it, you have an imagined persecution complex (claiming everyone hates Catholics - most people could give a shit), when in fact it would appear you have a anti-Semitic leaning. Nothing like persecuting while claiming persecution.
[quote]byukid wrote:
My belief is that Adam and all early prophets had a knowledge of Christ’s birth, including the virgin detail, thus, as they taught their children, the idea became corrupted and applied to several varied traditions.
Which is more likely? That several civilizations independently developed a myth, or that they inherited it from a common tradition more ancient than they? It’s debatable.[/quote]
Since the “pagan” myths predated Jesus, following your logic, there were many virgin births of “god-men” or, there were none. Which is it?[/quote]
The myths predated Jesus yes, but they had a common origin. Then, in these cultures either the rumor was promulgated about someone earlier, or was ascribed to some particularly ambitious men. [/quote]
Again, so I ask you; was there more than one virgin birth or none? And was Jesus’ “virgin birth” a result of perpetuating a myth?
[/quote]
You’re creating a false dilemma. There was one- Christ. The fact that he was prophesied in history and prefigured in myth by others doesn’t mean that all the prefiguration were real- they were relics of the corrupted, original truth taught by the most ancient prophet- Adam. It’s like a game of telephone switching from “There will be man born of a virgin” to “There was a man born of a virgin” across the ancient world.
"Nowhere does the Bible predict that the Messiah will be born to a virgin.[/quote]
This is incorrect. If you look at the MT (which came after Jesus) manuscripts the Jews changed several verses from virgin to young girl. If you look at the Septuagint (which Jesus, the Apostles, and Hellenistic Jews used) it does plainly state that a Virgin will give birth to a Son.
Love the revisionist history. If you’re going to use such horrid source, I won’t bother commenting on the rest of it.[/quote]
Pious fraud my friend. A myth invented by your Church. Was it “inspired”? Or just a fraud? And now your Church is the arbiter of interpretation for the original Hebrew? LOL[/quote]
Your dislike for religion aside, there are a number of Jews that both have the cultural history and command of the language and also accept that Jesus was the Messiah. Therefore, not all Jews are united in agreement that the Catholic church screwed up the translation of the “virgin” part of the virgin birth.
And while I agree that the Catholic Church needs to be taken with a deal of salt in many things, I don’t agree that it is automatically wrong in its analysis of the ancient prophecies or language. The reasons for that are complicated and I really don’t have the frame of mind to actually try to articulate them all right now. But, if you are a Christian there are a number of passages refering very directly to the “stiff necked” and “deaf” Jews in relation to acceptance of the Messiah by Jesus himself. And if you are not a Christian then there is always the point of view that you need not be a Jew to be able to critique language in its historical sense. That would be the equivalent of saying that you need to be Egyptian in order to comment on Egyptian language. Or that if you are not a historian of the same ethnic background as your subject matter you are automatically less qualified to comment on said subject than if you were.
Both of those analogies negate a large, large chunk of scholarship over the past centuries on all subjects, ethnic, relgious, anthropological, sociological, political, and otherwise. Therefore I do not see it as a tenable position to say that the Catholic interpretation of the wording is wrong because many Jews do not believe it. I also do NOT think that the Catholic Church is the final arbiter either btw.[/quote]
You make a reasonable argument and I concur.
Let me be more clear. Myths of virgin births and even resurrection predate Christianity. If there is “scripture” that attests to such, it’s inspired by man, and stolen from pagan myths. I believe Jesus walked the earth. I believe he was a prophet, wise man, etc, and that his teaching have value. I don’t believe the other “stuff” no matter who wrote it or interpreted it. [/quote]
Ah then, that is perfectly fair. I really had no interest in the debate that has now started on the virgin birth, I was just checking in to make sure I understood your position RE: the validity of the language criticism.
Actually, I’m more fascinated by the OP’s post on the timing issue than anything. Hoping some other people have something learned to say on it.
From the sounds of it, you have an imagined persecution complex (claiming everyone hates Catholics - most people could give a shit), when in fact it would appear you have a anti-Semitic leaning. Nothing like persecuting while claiming persecution. [/quote]
Seriously?
Just when I start to think maybe I’m a little too harsh in my judgment of you, you pull out one of these.