_Are_ a nation. They never died out, although the world tried hard to make it happen.

Not all Children of Israel are Jews, but almost all are, hence the words are used interchangeably. There are about a thousand Samaritans who are (presumably) Children of Israel (and Israeli citizens) but they are not Jews (and they do not follow the same Bible as Jews and Christians do).

It gets a bit complicated with Jacob and his wives and twelve sons. Perhaps KFC can go into some detail about that family. I don't have a knack for remembering such details.

I spoke of basic beliefs. I said they believe that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (Muhammadism) are true religions.

Islam is not more intolerant now than Christianity was during its heyday. Do you think I care whether the people who expell the Jews call themselves "Christians" or "Muslims"?




Christianity was pushed by sword into eastern Europe and southern America. Islam spread by sword and word-of-mouth. The largest (by population) Muslim country in the world is Indonesia and no Muslim army ever reached it.

During the Crusades Jews and non-Catholic Christians _welcomed_ the (so-called) "intolerant" Muslims because they freed them from "Christian" rule.

Islam is to fundamentalist Muslims what Christianity is to fundamentalist Christians: a reason to excuse intolerance. But none of that has anything to do with true Islam and true Christianity.




Which in its worst form is better than what Christianity traditionally had to over for Jews and Muslims.

I'd rather be a member of a people of a book than a Jew in medieval Europe, I can tell you that.




Did Christianity during its most powerful time allow Jews and Muslims to practice their respective religions?

Did Christianity not cause the reformation and the creation of hundreds of protestant churches because of its intolerance towards other beliefs?




Yes, but have you ever met any Muslims and lived with them?

I have.

I shared a student dorm with Arab Muslims in Israel. They were great guys. We are still friends.

So don't you tell me how "intolerant" Muslims are.

I know the problems with Islamic fundamentalism and its attitude towards science, abortion, freedom of and from religion, and the secular state. That's why I oppose such fundamentalism, regardless of what religion it makes use of.

The Qur'an was written over 1200 years ago, at a time when women had no rights in polytheistic Arab tribes. The Qur'an was the first Arab law that established rights for women. And, incidentally, it did so before the Christian world granted such rights.

Leauki posts# 527

I agree. The Catholic Church alone claims to speak in the name of Divine and Infallible authority in matters of faith and morals.



The Jewish Temple was the only House of God in the Old Covenant, and that operated through God's chosen priests...The Temple and synagogues have been replaced by the Catholic Chruch as the only House of God in the New Covenant that operates through Christ's priesthood, the order of Melchesedech.

Of Christ's numerous disciples, He selected 12 and formed them into a corporate body and revealed to them "the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven." So, the "committees" that you speak of is through the Priests, everyone of them successors of the Apostles, through "the laying on of hands". Eph. 2:20 tells us "The Church is built upon the foundation of the Apostles."

If one wants God's way rather than their own, Christ's Church and thus His Truth may be found. Of course, one must pay the price for Truth, but the price is giving up the false for the true. No friend of Christ persists in his love for what he knows or comes to know is false.

The testimony is positive, every reason in sense, history, Scripture, and Tradition influences belief that Christ said He would and He actually did institute a Church. The "keys" of its authority were administered to St.Peter, and its powers were defined, the powers of teaching, sandtifying, and ruling were all promised and conferred.

Christ's terms included a visible Church, a priestly kingdom, a city built on top of a hill that cannot be hid; a lamp giving light to the whole house, a mustard seed which was to grow large enough for all.



Thank you for your opinion of why the Catholic Church forbade the reading of false, counterfeit materials.

Now let me give you mine. I know the fight the CC to safeguard her children from the loss of their faith through counterfeit Bibles and other reading materials has caused her to be charged with being hostile for over 500 years.


A proper understanding of this is dependent upon an appreciation of the fact that the CC made the Holy Bible and preserved the integrity of its writings in it from its infancy of Christianity because she cherished the Holy Bible as the very Word of God.

The CC is Christocentric, being of and for Christ, and being the Mystical body of Christ. She holds with St.Jerome that "ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." Cardinal Newman said through Scripture our mind is energized and developed. So, the Chruch is ever concerned that Catholics should know the truths about Christ that are in the Holy Bible.

Now, in the days when there was no printing presses, paper, or libraries, and other means of enlightenment, and when the percentages of people who could read and write was very low, the Chruch taught the message of the Holy Bible through the priest's sermons, through the artistry on the walls and even through stained glass windows that depeicted the life, death and resurrection of Christ, through Passion and Easter plays, through religious music,etc. In other words, biblical events were very much and still are for that matter, a part of Catholic Church life. As has been pointed out many times over, the most illiterate peasant received profitable Biblical and religious instruction from the Church.

What the CC forbade in the past as she does today is the reading of perverted translations. It's a matter of historic fact that the Chruch hs a standing commission whose prupose is to safeguard the authenticity and integrity of the Holy Scriptures until the end of time. And therefore the CC has defended the Holy Bible against mutilation becasue God's word is her very own a possession of Christ's kingdom on earth to be transmitted to posterity in its full integrity.

Once Protestantism took hold in the 1500s, and later with the invention of the printing press, numerous faulty versions were printed to meet the extingencies of their ever changing doctrines.

So, the Church in her high regard for the moral and religious welfare of her children, protects us by forbidding the reading of any false, perverted, or otherwise counterfeit translations. You might liken this to the state being strenuously opposed to counterfeit money. It robs people of their goods and causes them a loss...whereas counterfeit Bibles and other materials rob people of religious truth and the proper moral guidance and their
faith thus threatening the loss of their eternal happiness.

Leauki posts: #533

KFC POSTS:



On the matter regarding religious side books, I think the same way as you do KFC. As far as Judaism is concerned we have the OLd Testament and that's good enough for me.



REGARDING LEAUKI'S POST #535
KFC POSTS:

LEAUKI,

I don't know if you realized it or not, however KFC's questions defend her point. You dance around them telling her to ask a rabbi. Her questions are valid refutations of your assertion that Jews don't believe the Messiah will be a man and could very well be a woman.

You said:

This is a very strong statment.

Where does Judaism teach that? Where is that found? Is it your personal interpreation of something? Perhaps you are the one who should be asking the rabbi.

KFC POSTS:

The same here. Discussing religion is not about converting anyone, as SoDaiho would say, "goodness"!

It's about sharing the truth and defending the Church and Catholicism whenever I see it misrepresented or maligned.

That these discussions are a great learning experience for me is an understatement.

Sodaiho posts:

Regarding my comment #606, I've always done my best to explain the doctrines and teachings of Catholicsm as truthfully as I know how...if that comes across to you as my denigrating other faith traditions, I can't help that.

You may believe in Indifferentism, that says all paths lead to God, but I don't... which means that one of us has the truth. You may have missed reading my post #525 and I wonder how would you respond?

I'll repost here for your convenience......

Lula's post #525:

KFC POSTS: #535

LEAUKI POSTS:


KFC POSTS:


SODAIHO POSTS: #544

Good question SoDaiho.

Here are the two passages:

Zacharais 9:9, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout for joy O daughter of Jerusalem: behold thy King will come to thee, the just and savior: He is poor and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass."

In describing Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, St.Matt. 21:1-7 repeats part of what Zacharias says,

"And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, unto Mount OLive, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 Saying to them, Go into the village that is opposite you and immediately you will find an ass tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. 3 And if anyone shall say anything to you, you shall say that the Lord has need of them, and immediately he will let them go. 4 Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, sayying,

"Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold thy King cometh to thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and the colt, the foal of her, that is used to the yoke."

6 And the disciples going did as Jesus commanded them. 7 And they brought the ass and the colt and laid their garments upon them and made Him a seat thereon."

What's it all mean? In His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Jesus reveals Himself as the Messias as St.Matthew and St.John stress by quoting the prophecy of Zacharais. My research shows that while the Latin translation says "mounted on a (female) ass, the Hebrew text says mounted on a (male) ass and the later text from the Greek Septuagint, no sex is specified.

Both Sts. Mark and Luke has Jesus telling them to "go into the village opposite you and immediately you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it." They also have Jesus riding the colt...and this presents no contradiction with St.Matthew who of course mentions both an ass and her foal which would not have come without the mother by its side.

St,Matthew sees in the fact that the colt is with the ass as a further detail of the prophecy, although Jesus was mounted only on the colt)! In the prophecy of Zacharais the future Messanaic king is described as poor meaning humble. Turns out the ass, originally a noble mount (Gen. 22:3; Ex. 4:20 and Numbers 22:21, was replaced by the horse in the period of the Israelite monarchy 1Kings 4:26; 10:28. The prophecy by referring to the ass, shows that the King of Peace wins His victory by humility and gentleness, not by force of arms.

The Church Fathers claim there is a deeper meaning to all this...

They see the ass as symbolizing Judaism, for long subject to the yoke of the Law, and the foal on which no one had ridden, as symbolizing the Gentiles. Jesus leads both Jews and Gentiles into the Church.

As well as figuratively speaking, the colt which was never sat upon represents the New Covenant with its King, Jesus who in humility assumed flesh for mankind,while the ass represents the Old Covenant as the source of the New Covenant.

Wow.  An passive aggressive attack on Christianity.  On the internet.  By someone from your, uh, cohort.  In 2008.

Can I tell you how original you are?  The sheer creativity is quite frightening, really.

 

Hello Lula,   In such times donkeys were a common conveyance and work animal.  Nothing special.  Signs and symbols are only signs and symbols, not to be confused with reality, regardless of how the church interprets them. And if they are, indeed, signs and symbols they are open to numerous alternative interpretations. On the other hand a donkey just may a donkey.

You have faith in your church because it demands it and to think critically about it would appear as a crack in that faith. If I were a Catholic I might do the same, but then, I don't know...I understand American Catholics aren't so willing to toe the party line.

You and KFC seem to think the Bible is a highly symbolic script. You would, apparently, be lost without it.  But it is, afterall, just a book with words, ancient words, printed in it.  The real Torah, the real Holy Scripture, is life itself.  And life is in constant motion.  Constantly evolving, changing, processing. To attempt to interpret thousand year old texts in a way that makes sense today without being in touch with the Infinite is an exercise in futility and, I believe, an insult to God.  Scripture is, at best, a guideline or gateway to Oneness.

 

 

To be fair Jews do much the same.  Seeing the entire universe in the Torah.  I see this interpretive focus, when obsessive, to be as blind to the truth as any blindness could be.

 

A truly spiritual life is a life lived with an open heart, a heart open to the entire universe as it speaks to it, often in whispers, sometimes in text, but more often not.

 

Be well.

KFC POSTS: #549




There's lots of lessons for us to glean in the story of Abraham and Isaac.

Of Abraham, it's strength of living faith, as his faith was put to the most severe test when God after promising him a numerous posterity, commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, the son through whom alone he could have any descendants. Abraham believed so firmly that he is called a man of great faith. His example ought to lead us to believe firmly in God's word and trust in His goodness and faithfulness, whatever our temptations and trials may be. Abraham loved God above all things.

Can you imagnine Abraham how sorely his heart was as he travelled along with Isaac, his son so dear to him, for 3 long days to the place of the sacrifice?

Isaac was a type of Jesus Christ but not a perfect type of the Sacrifice of Our Lord.

---The birth of Isaac was promised repeatedly. So was the coming of Jesus Christ.
---Isaac was the only and dearly beloved son of his father and Jesus Christ is the only begotten and beloved Son of God in whom His Father is well pleased.
---Isaac was obedient to his father and was willing out of obedience to give up his life,letting himself be bound, and waiting patiently for the death-stroke.
---Jesus Christ was obedient to His Heavenly Father unto death, even on the Cross.
---As a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb He opened not His mouth.
---Isaac himself carried up the mountain the wood on which he would be slaughtered.
---Christ carried up to Calvary the Cross on which He was to die.

The one main point in which the sacrifice of Isaac was completely different is that when Apraham was ready to slay his son, an angel intervened and would not permit the sacrifice to be completed becasue sinful man cannot be redeemed by a human sacrifice. God spared the son of Abraham, but did not spare His own Son, but gave Him over to a painful death for our sakes. On Calvary when the executioners raised their hammers and nailed to the Cross the Hands and Feet of God made Man, there was no angel crying out to stop. The Sacrifice was completed and the Son of God died for us on the Cross in unutterable agony of Soul and Body. "God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son , that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting."

SoDaiho posts:

I'll second that!

Yes, it says that that animals from the land came to him. This suggests to me that they were his animals (or local animals that knew him or his estate).

Your quote, btw, doesn't mention "eretz". It speaks of "every creeping thing of the _adama_". "Adama" is "earth", as in the material. (In fact it is a type of red sand; "adom" means "red".)

It's a pity that both "eretz" (earth, land, territory) and "adama" (earth, red sand) are translated as "earth", but that doesn't make them the same.




Yes. And it means the same thing: "earth" as in "land".

1:1 juxtaposes "eretz" with "shamayim". "Shamayim" looks like it is derived from "mayim" ("water", or more precisely "waters", both words are plural). In Genesis 1:1 "eretz" does not refer to the planet "earth", but to the concept "earth as opposed to heaven", with "heaven" being the same type of thing as "water". Think "dry land" as opposed to "not dry land".

"Shamayim" ("heavens") contain other planets. Planet earth is not the opposite of all other planets. "Earth" as in "dry land" is the opposite of "heavens".

Perhaps you are thinking "shamayim" refers to "heaven" as in "seventh heaven". But Judaism doesn't have a concept of "heaven" like Christianity and Islam do. "Shamayim" simply refers to "heaven" in the sense "more like water than like dry earth for the purpose of human life".

I am not saying "eretz" can never mean "earth, the planet". But when a translation as "world" (earth, the planet) doesn't make as much sense as a translation as "land", why pick "earth, the planet"? In Hebrew neither is the true meaning of "eretz", as the words simply don't map precisely.

But if you read the Bible and think of "eretz" as "earth, the entire planet", you will get funny results and it won't end with an impossible flood but with other things you probably won't accept.

If you want to read the Bible literally, do it; but don't decide when to read it literally and when to read metaphors into it.

If you read it literally, G-d is corporeal (even before Jesus), the entire planet was flooded, and Israel is a planet. And that reading already requires you to read "eretz" as "earth, the planet" rather than "dry land", where the second is the better approximation of the meaning of Hebrew "eretz".

First thing you should do is make sure you differentiate between "eretz" ("earth", "dry land", the thing one stands on) and "adama" ("earth", "red sand", the thing it's made of).

The first is used whenever a territory of any kind is described and the relevant feature is "not heaven or water". The second is used whenever the ground itself is described and the relevant feature is "it's sort of sandy and it looks a bit red".

Also note that people 5000 years ago did not differentiate between their land and the world. They didn't know where the world ended (or that it was round). If you think people read this story 3000 years ago and saw a round planet with a watery surface, you fall for an anachronism.

Lula,

Her statements are not valid refutations at all.

Sodaiho has already addressed the donkey issue. KFC doesn't explain why "riding a donkey" implies "man". As for the crucifixion issue, KFC merely _stated_ that it was predicted but also said that the word was never used.

So how am I supposed to refute those statements apart from what was already said?

Here's your list of KFC's "refutations of my assertion". I have already replied to each of them, despite your claim that I hadn't refuted them.

But let's go through them again. KFC's "evidence" for the Messiah necessarily being a man is:



This proves, if the story is even true, that people expected a male Messiah or thought that he could be male. It doesn't prove that the Messiah could only be male. They merely thought that a male human being could be the Messiah.




A crucifixion wasn't predicted at all. KFC merely read that into the text when she decided not to be literal for a moment.

Besides, none of us know (or at least nobody came up and stated) whether Roman law allowed for the execution of women. I don't see why a woman cannot be predicted to die on the cross. Do we have any stats on crucifixions in the Roman Empire that back up the claim that a crucifixion is proof for the victim being a man?



Women and men can ride donkeys and the donkey was the typical riding animal at the time.

Here KFC decides to read literal again and then decides that it is a metaphor also.


I looked up the crucifixion issue, and found this:

"Women were subject to crucifixion just as were men (cf. Josephus, Antiquitaties 18.79ff.). In fact, women had far fewer rights and far less respect than men in the Roman Empire, so it would have been more likely rather than less likely that they would have been subjected to cruel punishment."

http://www.thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/99832.qna/category/ch/page/questions/site/iiim


So at the end you have a prediction that doesn't exist of a crucifixion that could happen to a woman as proof that the person predicted to be crucified in the prediction that doesn't exist would necessarily be a man.

That's weak, even for "Isaac's birth is a prediction of Jesus' birth" standards.