Bible Club - Matthew

[MidGe]

ironunkind,

but why is your interpretation superior to mine. I really think that the focus on Joseph is significant and disprove the virgin birth. Note that this statement is not anti-christian, I know of many christians that do not believe in the virgin birth!

[IronUnkind]

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but why is your interpretation superior to mine. I really think that the focus on Joseph is significant and disprove the virgin birth.

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In light of Matthew's subsequent presentation of a virgin birth, it seems more likely than not that his inclusion of Joseph in the genealogy served some purpose other than proving biological heredity.

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Note that this statement is not anti-christian, I know of many christians that do not believe in the virgin birth!

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Me too. Matthew doesn't appear to be one of these, however.

[MidGe]

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In light of Matthew's subsequent presentation of a virgin birth

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I thought the exegesis of the original term used for virgin also meant young woman?

[Prodigy54321]

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In light of Matthew's subsequent presentation of a virgin birth

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I thought the exegesis of the original term used for virgin also meant young woman?

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I believe that whatever book in the old testament (Isaiah 7:14) talks about the birth of jesus...it uses a word that simply means "young woman"..but the writer of matthew took the word to mean "virgin"..so in matthew..I believe that the word they us is indeed the word for "virgin"..

that's how I understand it anyways..I'm sure a google search can solve this mystery in any event

[ICMoney]

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One of the interesting themes I got was how Matthew seemed to think it was important to show how Jesus was fulfilling the messianic prophecies throughout, but...well...the term self-fulfilling came to mind several times. The prophecies claimed the child would be named Emmanuel, first off. And Joseph took the child to Egypt for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy, although it was also at the behest of God. It just seemed like the majority of fulfilled prophecies could easily be explained by Joseph simply being conversant in them...which he would have been, right? Joseph was a Jew and all of these prophecies would have been known for hundreds of years.

There were other things I thought were interesting, but thats my start.

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Are you saying people did things just to fulfill prophecies?

If you look into what the prophecies (300+) predicted you would be amazed.

ICMoney

[vhawk01]

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One of the interesting themes I got was how Matthew seemed to think it was important to show how Jesus was fulfilling the messianic prophecies throughout, but...well...the term self-fulfilling came to mind several times. The prophecies claimed the child would be named Emmanuel, first off. And Joseph took the child to Egypt for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy, although it was also at the behest of God. It just seemed like the majority of fulfilled prophecies could easily be explained by Joseph simply being conversant in them...which he would have been, right? Joseph was a Jew and all of these prophecies would have been known for hundreds of years.

There were other things I thought were interesting, but thats my start.

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Are you saying people did things just to fulfill prophecies?

If you look into what the prophecies (300+) predicted you would be amazed.

ICMoney

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I'm saying, of the dozen or so prophecies listed as fulfilled in Matthew, there were few if any that couldn't easily be 'fulfilled' on purpose, and even those were vague or vaguely applied. For example, its a bit of a stretch to consider Jesus as Emmanuel.

[vhawk01]

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One of the interesting themes I got was how Matthew seemed to think it was important to show how Jesus was fulfilling the messianic prophecies throughout, but...well...the term self-fulfilling came to mind several times. The prophecies claimed the child would be named Emmanuel, first off. And Joseph took the child to Egypt for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy, although it was also at the behest of God. It just seemed like the majority of fulfilled prophecies could easily be explained by Joseph simply being conversant in them...which he would have been, right? Joseph was a Jew and all of these prophecies would have been known for hundreds of years.

There were other things I thought were interesting, but thats my start.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you saying people did things just to fulfill prophecies?

If you look into what the prophecies (300+) predicted you would be amazed.

ICMoney

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I'm saying, of the dozen or so prophecies listed as fulfilled in Matthew, there were few if any that couldn't easily be 'fulfilled' on purpose, and even those were vague or vaguely applied. For example, its a bit of a stretch to consider Jesus as Emmanuel.

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Better yet, all it would take would be a SINGLE messianic prophecy that wasn't fulfilled to basically completely dismiss claims of Jesus as the Messiah.

With that in mind, its not too surprising how apparently loosely they were interpreted.

[MidGe]

ICMoney,

Honestly, if you look at it with an open mind, then, it becomes really laughable to look at the mind gymnastics required to get the prophecies fulfilled. I am not capable of such contortions of mind. If I was ,I am sure, I could prove anything using any book. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[EYEWHITES]

i think it would be better if this were titled Bible Club Matthew Chapter 1. Given there is alot of chapters. If it is really going to be a bible study, it needs to be broken down into sections, so it can be dicussed.
Atleast point out something you found wrong, instead of linking people to a website, that someone eles made, even if you have to copy and paste them here put something more than" Partly because I'm too tired and partly because I want to see how it develops, I'm not going to go into a big thing quoting verses and explaining my theory of "Jesus the con man." Any strong counterpoint? Especially from the atheist wing?

anything worth doing is worth doing right. right?

[madnak]

As I said, I wanted to see how the thread would develop. I really didn't want these to be big argument threads, but it looks like there may be no avoiding it. I was hoping for a variety of interpretations.

MidGe, I agree with your viewpoint but I'm hoping these threads will be more about personal reactions than anything. Let's leave the SAB and other external sites out of it. Also, I'd like to discuss the Bible in full context, and since this is the first book we're reading I'd prefer if we didn't discuss other books yet. ICMoney, that works both ways. We're discussing the story of Matthew right now, broader discussion will have to wait until we officially reach the prophecies themselves.

EYEWHITES, this isn't a Bible study per se, it's more of a book club that happens to be centered around the Bible. A close reading of any given chapter is beyond the scope of this project. In terms of "doing it right," my hope was that we'd have civil discussions rather than the normal back-and-forth, but that may have been an unrealistic expectation. The Bible tends to evoke strong emotions from people on both sides of the fence, and as a result it's easy for discussion to devolve into flame wars. Given that my own interpretation was less than charitable to the Christians, I had hoped to allow a more peaceful discussion of the story to develop. Still, if it's worth doing it's worth doing right, so I'll move forward and post my specific thoughts.

I'd like to say beforehand that, in spite of my various problems with the text, this is a Bible club and not a Bible bashing club. To the Christians, it may be more appropriate to present your own interpretations than to bother with point-by-point refutations of the atheists.