Theological Opinions , PART II

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Lief, God is OUR father; there's no need for a Son of God in the Jesus sense. Every Shabbat, we recite a prayer that refers to him as "Avinu Malkenu" = Our Father, Our King in Hebrew.

And the prayer Jesus taught us to pray starts with, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." We pray to God as the Father just as you do. I also agree with you that God is all-sufficient- he doesn't need additional gods to back him up.

It's not a matter of God being insufficient alone and so needing Jesus too, from our perspective. Rather, it is our view that Jesus is simply part of God and a natural extension of him. As Jesus said when praying to the Father, "we are one." So saying that God doesn't need a Jesus is like saying, "I don't need my arms." It's not that God is weak and needs a buddy to back him up, but rather it's like us having received an increased knowledge of God's anatomy, and it's rather different from human anatomy.

The sun has radiation, light and energy. All three are one, in the sun. And it's not like saying that the sun has radiation means that the sun is insufficient without it- it's just describing in a bit more detail what the sun you have always known is.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

(not wishing to get into attempting to disprove the New Testament, which can only get me into trouble, given that there are about a billion Christians...)

I have no problem with your attempting to disprove the New Testament. I disagree with current Judaism, because I think it's incomplete. I disagree with everyone in the world who's not a Christian, about many significant points of religion, and I disagree with most Christians about many things as well. Disagreeing with people isn't a bad thing. Everyone doesn't have to be right. In fact, considering how many major contradictions there are between major world views, logically speaking, almost everyone has to be wrong on some things.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

there's no reason to see the Messiah as the Son of God or part of a godhead in the Old Testament, unless you reread New Testament ideas back into it.

You're ignoring all the scripture fulfillments I cited in my above post, though. Those are reasons from the Old Testament to see Jesus as the Messiah.

I agree with the Jewish view that God is your Father. Christians believe that God is our Father, as well, and we worship him that way. The prayer Jesus taught us starts with, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . ."

Remember that Isaiah is part of the Old Testament, and in it, it says, "Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." That Messianic prophecy says outright that the Messiah will be God, and that's from the Old Testament, not the new.

I cited many other Old Testament scriptures also that confirm Jesus as the Messiah. I'd love to go more into it, if you like . It's a wonderfully exciting subject, because the scriptural confirmation for Jesus and his ministry is astoundingly strong.

Originally Posted by biblebelievers.org

Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, Peter Stoner, has calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies made concerning the Messiah. The estimates were worked out by twelve different classes representing some 600 university students.

The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even among the most skeptical students.

However Professor Stoner then took their estimates, and made them even more conservative. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair. Finally, he submitted his figures for review to a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation. Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented (Peter Stoner, Science Speaks, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, 4).

I believe that other mathematicians aside from Stoner have also made the calculations, and come up with about the same results as he has.

Stoner's calculations concluded that the probability of Jesus fulfilling by accident just eight of the prophecies he fulfilled in the scripture is one in one hundred million billion.

If each of those numbers was a silver dollar, they'd cover the whole state of Texas with a depth of two feet. Mark one silver dollar and have a blindfolded person pick one of the silver dollars up randomly, and that's the likelihood that Jesus would have had of fulfilling those 8 by accident, on his own.

Jesus fulfilled at least 48 prophecies that the Jews knew about and accepted as Messianic, at his time. There are actually about 300 prophecies from the Old Testament that he fulfilled, but many of the 300 aren't explicit and are arguable. The odds of an accidental fulfillment of the 48 accepted prophecies, however, are one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion,trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.

The odds of him having accidentally fulfilled the 48 are the same as you randomly happening to pick the single right atom from all the atoms of a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the same size as our own.

More than one mathematician has gone over these statistics, and they carefully take into account only those prophecies were considered Messianic by the Jewish community at the time of Christ's fulfillment of them.

There were a number of prophecies Jesus didn't fulfill, because we think they relate to the Second Coming. Yet even if he missed fulfilling a bunch of prophecies at the time of his First Coming, that doesn't reduce the improbability that he could have fulfilled as many as he did.

Also, there have also been repeated debates in Rabbi circles that I've read about, in which they have struggled to get the picture of the suffering and dying Messiah described in Isaiah to fit with the picture of a triumphant militarily victorious Messiah presented in Zechariah. One Rabbi said in frustration, "It is as though the Old Testament describes two different comings!" That's not an exact quote, but that was the essentials of what he said. If you want me to provide a citation, I can try to do so. It'll take me a few days to get it to you because I don't have the book with me anymore and would have to get it back from my grandmother, but if you doubt me, I could try.

The Old Testament is an almost unbelievably remarkable canon of books, not only in terms of historical accuracy and spiritual richness, but also in terms of the precise accuracy of its prophetic fulfillment.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

As for the holy spirit, I assume you're looking at Psalm 51:[11] Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. But holy is an adjective. God's spirit, the spirit of God, the divine (literal) inspiration that is given to the blessed, is holy - it is a holy spirit. But it is not The Holy Spirit that Milton conceived of as brooding, dove-like on the abyss, nor the dove the descended at Jesus' baptism.

Remember that the Holy Spirit Milton described hovering over the abyss is based upon Genesis 1, which says that in the beginning there was darkness, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. That's what Milton was basing that imagery on.

Though I'm not trying to push this point. It's not anywhere near as important as the fact that God's name in the Old Testament is plural, that he refers to himself as plural, and that the prophecies not only point to Jesus but say in Isaiah 9 that the Messiah would be God.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

And on the other point, I'd say the current webpage of the Lutheran Synod of Missouri might be more recent than the 16th century, although it still holds 16th century beliefs (hey, Christianity's a 1st century belief, and Judaism older than that...)

Well of course they're going to have documents from their forebears on their websites. It doesn't mean they'll agree with every view all these forefathers say.

But would you provide a link to this site and to the document you're citing from it? You're getting me interested in really checking this out.