Alright. Then I wish you the best of luck with that, brother. Just don't get too frustrated if they don't listen to reason and try not to spend too much time on it.
Need Help Responding to Attack on our Faith
- Thread starter elevenBRAVO
- Start date
elevenBRAVO
Catholic
Haha, fair enough. Thank you.
Brother, ignore the paranoid posters, to some it seems anybody they disagree with is a Jewish troll. I saw in another thread they even called out Putin for saying he allowed different religions in Russia and his talk of denazification during the Tucker Carlson interview. Laughable. I guess Putin is also a big Jewish boogeyman despite being an Orthodox Christian!
To your question, he begins with saying the Torah is infallible and has no such errors. I’d stop listening right there!
Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
staddlelateen
Catholic
Then you have to do the work, dude. You already gave me your promise that you would isolate the arguments you found convincing, do research on common apologetic responses, and then ask for help on the rest.
Let me give you some advice: no one owes you time, no one owes you their attention, and no one owes you their expertise. You cannot come in here and ask people to watch a 3 hour video and then expect that we meticulously prepare detailed responses for your own personal wellbeing. It’s unreasonable and selfish.
Go do the work yourself and come back with your hat in your hand and in good faith. Otherwise, you will be tagged, appropriately, as a troll.
This is actually where Jesus says the opposite of what you think: Here the Lord explains that he knows the Law better than anyone else, and has come to fulfill it, and that the Law is important and not a single commandment can be done away with. Thus, in the next part of his sermon, he then goes on to critique parts of the old law, claiming they are not the true Law of God, and providing an authoritative update on the Law. When he gets to the part of the eye for the eye, we can see how Jesus even had a radical departure from the OT:
As we see here, the eye for the eye rule is replaced entirely with a commandment of love and mercy, to the point where the Lord tells us we are better not to even resist those who do evil and harm to us, but instead to love them back (so that they may be saved, which is inferred from later teachings).
Likewise, the same is true of all Christ's teachings within the Sermon; they fulfill the Law which means older Law that contradicts or conflicts with Christ was in fact corrupted teaching or simply part of God's plan to update the Law at a later point, when men's hearts were not as hard.
elevenBRAVO
Catholic
Why are you speaking for other people? Others have dialogued with me, and have no issue watching the debate and discussing it with me. Why are you trying to shut down that discussion? If this doesn't interest you, you don't have to take part in this thread. This is a free forum.
I really doubt this guy was reading his Bible and then noticed that a cities name was different or the number 70 changed to 75 in the new testament, its probably just a snake trying to cause doubt, for all we know this guy wasnt ever a Christisn to start off with, I too am not watching a 3 hour debate I have a busy life and better things to do with my time, firstly we dont regard the Bible the same way as the Muslims do their book likes its this perfect divine thing thats almost worshipped, our bible is not even in the same language as the original its been translatted into different languages over many centuries and words change etc, we are not a religion based on a book only like Islam, so regarding a cities name Im no expert but Iv seen many cities names change back and forth in my own life time, the airport in my city Johannesburg was once called Jan Smuts, then it changed to Johannesburg international now its called Oliver Tambo, how do we know that from the time of Genesis to thousands of years later a towns name didnt change either or if theres some other reason for that difference? These arguments did not come from this mans observation reading the bible they come from satan to try and cause confusion, sometimes there is a deeper meaning to why there are differences its done deliberately not by accident, even Christ when He quoted "you shall fear the Lord your God" from Deuteronomy He replaced the word fear with the word "worship" when quoting deuteronomy, look at the 4 gospels they are all very different accounts of the life of Christ even the way the geneologies are written they are slightly different but when look look deeper into them they actually reveal different truths it was not an accident it was intentional the gospels are full of these kinds of mysteries and differences if they were all supposed to be identical word for word then why would we need 4 gospels? I remember one example when someone was trying to discredit Christ as a baby going to do the census they said that king herod died before Christ was born so how could he issue a census that Mary and Joseph took Him to be registered at but then you find out there were 2 different Herods in history that both ruled that town they had the same name so the entire argument was designed to cause doubt in a dishonest way Im assuming this video is doing the same thing
I like Fr. Stephen de Young's point that the differences between the Gospel books is a testament to their validity as witnesses... they'd be much more suspect as some sort of coordinated contrivance if they were all the same details!
100% and the different styles they are written in and the wording and the details they are not the same yet they all support and confirm each other, like Mathews geneology shows Abraham to Christ, Mark has no geneaology, Luke shows Adam to Christ and Marys family tree, John shows Christ divinity as coming from God he goes beyond Luke that stops at Adam, in the beginning was the word and the word was God etc
I do not believe Jesus contradicts the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the Word of God, just as is the New Testament. God Himself wrote the Law on the tablets of stone. And Peter says that the Prophets spoke by God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
What I will grant is that the Jews in the days of Jesus had built an edifice of tradition that subverted the Law. Which Jesus corrects them over time and time again.
As for the "update", why Christians are not required to keep the Law, that is because Christ fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant. He kept the Law perfectly. Christians are members of the New Covenant, not the Mosaic, and are thus not bound to the Mosaic Law.
In Matthew 5, He is not contradicting or abolishing the Law but expounding on it. The Law says do not murder, but Jesus says even if you hate your brother you are already guilty. The Law says do not commit adultery, but Jesus says even if you look at a woman to lust after her you are already guilty of adultery.
The Pharisees had relegated the Law to the externals, but Jesus is showing that the Law must be within us intrinsically.
As for 'an eye for an eye', that was given as a civil law by God. It is not a call for personal vengeance, which is the misapplication that Jesus is addressing.
Waste time trying to debunk Jews if it's your inclination.
I wouldn't spend a second trying to engage with these people...at.... All...
I wouldn't spend a second trying to engage with these people...at.... All...
The so-called Rabbi is clearly a fraud. Don't believe anything you read, hear or watch especially that video you posted of Rabbi's debate with a "Christian Professor".
Christians after Christ no longer offer animal sacrifices for the forgivness of sins because those were shadows and types of Christ the real sacrifice so stuff like that changes, I think the parts of the law where it says we should wash our hands after touching a dead body are still valid, and obviously what to do with your sewage etc, those are not contradictions, we must keep in mind that when Christ walker the earth Judiasm and Christianity were one and the same religion thwy werent different religions, Christ is the Angel of the Lord in the flesh that we see spoken about in the old testament, the church is the continuation of the old testament including the trinity etc its all old testament doctrines, talmudic jews are the ones who started a new religion some time after Christ based on the rejection of Christ they the ones who no longer believe in a Trinity like the old Jews and who changed and contradic the old testament
In regards to Matthew 5:17 in the Religion of the Apostles, Father Stephen De Young makes the point that there is no contradiction. The reason the Apostles decided not to impose the dietary restrictions besides those mentioned at the Council of Jerusalem is because those were the rules that applied to the gentiles (strangers) who dwelt among the Israelites in the book of Leviticus. They didn't just decide to contradict Christ
Jeremiah Branch
Orthodox Catechumen
There are different bases for faith, and the strength of those bases varies. Speaking for myself, when I was earlier in my journey, getting to the bottom of specific factual claims was extremely important, and if some fact or other had not had a solid enough foundation for me, that would have hurt my faith. That is a fragile place to be in the long run.
Over time, my faith has been more and more based on an overall worldview and even intuition that I think is given by God, and it is difficult to shake my faith with particular "gotchas" based on logic, factual claims, etc. This is not to say the facts don't matter, but it is to say that faith goes beyond a logical and fundamentally empirical approach to religion.
We are told that "We see as through a glass darkly." We have been told we cannot know things with full clarity.
We are also told that "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." To me that implies that "proof" and full-blown empirical confidence are in conflict with faith: If you have "proof", then you no longer have faith. So anyone who is attacking Christianity based solely or mainly on factual and evidentiary and logical grounds cannot shake one's faith; because one's faith is not based on "proof".
We are given an innate moral sense and an ability to discern some things as noble, as holy, as "worth pursuing", and it is not about "proving" the truth of such things with scientific or logical precision. When I look at the highest achievements in Christianity: the martyrs, the saints, modern monks and holy men, I _know_ in my heart that what those men (and women) pursued was something True in the deepest sense. This isn't a matter of "winning a debate"; it's about innate spiritual knowledge and faith that is given to us by the grace of God.
If you have never read Puddleglum's speech in chapter 12 of the Silver Chair, Lewis makes a very powerful rhetorical case for faith in the face of seemingly insurmountable factual claims. This Rabbi strikes me as playing the role of the Green Witch to try to tear down people's faith, and he is every bit as wrong as the witch was in the Silver Chair.
Over time, my faith has been more and more based on an overall worldview and even intuition that I think is given by God, and it is difficult to shake my faith with particular "gotchas" based on logic, factual claims, etc. This is not to say the facts don't matter, but it is to say that faith goes beyond a logical and fundamentally empirical approach to religion.
We are told that "We see as through a glass darkly." We have been told we cannot know things with full clarity.
We are also told that "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." To me that implies that "proof" and full-blown empirical confidence are in conflict with faith: If you have "proof", then you no longer have faith. So anyone who is attacking Christianity based solely or mainly on factual and evidentiary and logical grounds cannot shake one's faith; because one's faith is not based on "proof".
We are given an innate moral sense and an ability to discern some things as noble, as holy, as "worth pursuing", and it is not about "proving" the truth of such things with scientific or logical precision. When I look at the highest achievements in Christianity: the martyrs, the saints, modern monks and holy men, I _know_ in my heart that what those men (and women) pursued was something True in the deepest sense. This isn't a matter of "winning a debate"; it's about innate spiritual knowledge and faith that is given to us by the grace of God.
If you have never read Puddleglum's speech in chapter 12 of the Silver Chair, Lewis makes a very powerful rhetorical case for faith in the face of seemingly insurmountable factual claims. This Rabbi strikes me as playing the role of the Green Witch to try to tear down people's faith, and he is every bit as wrong as the witch was in the Silver Chair.
To the OP, there is nothing in this debate that should give you great concern. Write down the arguments you felt had the greatest bite and take the time to study them. The answers are out there and many learned men have taken the time to answer these objections. The Rabbi made the claim that Christians translated 'young woman' in Isaiah as 'virgin'. That was enough for me to see that he was arguing in bad faith and is either ignorant of his own Scriptures, or knows better and is presenting this information in a sensationalistic fashion in order to prey on people's ignorance.
Either Jesus is the Christ, or all of Judaism is false. The Jewish religion as defined in the Old Testament cannot even be practiced anymore. The prophecies concerning Christ can only be fulfilled by one such as Jesus. Study very closely the Letter to the Hebrews, the Mosaic Covenant is done and the New Covenant has come.
Either Jesus is the Christ, or all of Judaism is false. The Jewish religion as defined in the Old Testament cannot even be practiced anymore. The prophecies concerning Christ can only be fulfilled by one such as Jesus. Study very closely the Letter to the Hebrews, the Mosaic Covenant is done and the New Covenant has come.
Isaiah 53 wrecks Judaism
I once had a Jew tell me that the idea of God becoming man is pagan and not consistent with the Old Testament. I asked him: is the Messiah man or God? He told me only a man. I then asked him: why is the Messiah called Mighty God and Eternal Father in Isaiah 9? He told me I'm not reading it in the original Hebrew and not understanding the context. I told him it says the same thing even in the original Hebrew.
elevenBRAVO
Catholic
Can we please focus on this point, since you mentioned it? You have indicated that it's a moot one, and I'm happy to accept that, but in this video, he clearly (and all the audience when he asks them for the meaning of the word in English before explaining why he's asking) agrees that "alma" or "almah" or whatever it is, is a young woman, and "batulah/batoolah" is a virgin. He even says here, in this video, that he has documentation of priests and Christian clergy apologizing to Jewish authorities for what he claimed was a Christian whitewashing of the covering up of the real meaning, etc. If that's true -- and he said he was willing to show it there, in the actual debate if the opponent wished -- this is exactly what I came here; he has argumentation and evidence that isn't so cut and dried and able to take down. I have never seen, for example, Shamoun address this rabbi. Singer? Yes. Others? Yes. But not this one.