Monday, January 7, 2019

Answering another Yeshua-rejecter



Here Miriam is referring to Matthew 2:23 "And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.' " and lamenting (whining actually) that there is no Tanakh verse that says this!

Of course, many fall into this trap and it's a shame that counter-missionaries/Yeshua rejecters like Miriam are so determined to deny the Messiah that they won't take the time to figure this out. Well, here's the deal:

The RSV is English, originating from the Greek and the Greek for Matthew 2:23 has the plural "prophets" in the verse. But in the Aramaic, the word for "prophet" is the same in the singular or the plural.

Hebrew has a distinct form of "prophet" for the singular from the plural, but not Aramaic. So the Greek translators, since no particular prophet was named in Matthew 2:23 (unlike Matthew 2:17, and 4:14, for example), chose "prophets" instead of "prophet".

They should have said "prophet"! There is only one prophet who refers to the Messiah as a "netzer" or "sprout/twig", and that is Isaiah. See Isaiah 11:1 "And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a twig [netzer] shall grow forth out of his roots." (JPS).

Other prophets also reveal the Messiah as the "branch" but use the word "tzemach". Thus there is nothing "fabricated" about Matthew 2:23 and shame on ANYONE who won't take the time to study this - and study it without bias!


Miriam cites Hebrews 8:13 from the RSV which reads: "In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." (How childish then to say "...what does that mean? Pesach drops down from 7 days, to 6, to 5...?" That's truly shameful.)

So she cited a heavily biased version of the Bible, the RSV. If she'd take her time and also compare what the RSV says in the Tanakh, she'd soon realize that the RSV is not exactly the document to use to "bash" the idea of the Messiah.

What Hebrews 8:13 actually says is this: "In that he said a Renewed (Covenant), he made the first old; and that which is old and decaying, is near to disappearing." (AENT).

If the reader would simply go back to at least verse 8, they'd come to see that from the context (Miriam has a demonstrated difficulty with context), which is Jeremiah 31:31-34, what is “near to disappearing” is the sinful predisposition of man that breaks Torah, not the standard of Torah.

It's humans who broke Torah, not Adonai, so from verse Hebrews 8:10 we learn that with Torah written on our hearts, we would no longer sin and what is "old" and near vanishing is our old nature, and what is "new" is our new nature, with a heart-felt desire to live by Torah.

Admittedly, most Christians, along with Miriam, read and understand Hebrews 8:13 wrong, but that's their fault, not the scripture.

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