Yes, Jesus was born on Dec 25!

[DirectorAbbie]

[QUOTE=FreelancePoliceman;1370504]It should be noted that Quirinius was instated by Rome after Herod Archelaus (the son of Herod the Great, who was long dead at this point) was deposed from his rule, so it's impossible for both stories to be true.
Luke doesn't say Jesus was born when Quirinius was governor; it says that's when the census took place. Traveling to Bethlehem would have been in preparation for the census.

But fine, you might say, Matthew's story is clearly unreliable,

I would say no such thing.

Besides the fact that Luke's account of having everyone go to their hometown to register is plainly insane,

It wasn't expected by Rome; it was expected by Israel. Because people's identities were so closely tied to the land: the promised land, the land portioned out to their ancestors at the time of Joshua. They were heavily invested in genealogies, and that involved the place of their ancestry. Whenever a census was taken in the Old Testament, it was according to the tribes, so when Rome ordered a census, Israel would again have tried to do it according to tribes.

Jesus doesn't appear to have fulfilled the rest of Micah 5, which has to do with the Messiah destroying his foes, and the Lord smiting a lot of people in anger.

That'll be at the second coming.

Also, who are the Assyrians who are supposed to have ravaged Judea after Jesus' death? When did Jesus deliver anyone from these Assyrians?

You have exactly the same mindset of the Jews at Jesus's time: expecting the messiah to be as one of the judges of old who rose up to save them from a political enemy. But as Jesus explained to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36-37; cf. Ephesians 6:12)

Isaiah 7:14 also doesn't refer to the Messiah. From Jews For Judaism:

I'd also like to add the obvious: Jesus was not named Immanuel.

Yes, my pastor mentioned that the word means "young woman" and the passage quoted about the child in his sermon Sunday, as well as the fact that Jesus's name was Joshua not Immanuel and the reasoning for that.
https://www.lakemeadbaptist.org/uplo...n_12.22.19.mp3

Again, Isaiah 53 is referring to the nation of Israel, i.e. the Jews. The reason you don't understand that is that you're taught to not read the book as a whole. The "suffering servant" is explicitly identified with "Jacob" in Isaiah 44: "And now, hearken, Jacob My servant, and Israel whom I have chosen...."

It's clear that it's all addressed to the children of Israel. Except for chapter 45, which is addressed to a gentile ruler, and chapter 47, which is addressed to Gentiles though clearly with the intent of being overheard by the Jews. It's not all about them as a people. For example, chapter 49 speaks of the "Redeemer of Israel" who will "raise up the tribes of Jacob." This evidently isn't about the nation as a whole, and from the last verse it is shown that this Redeemer is God Himself...who is also His Servant.

But things can refer to both the Christ and to the nation. In the seed of Abraham the nations of the world would be blessed. This is both in the seed as in descendants and in the Seed singular (Galatians 3:16-17). Israel was meant to be a light to the gentiles, but they failed in that calling. Yet One came from Israel who is a light to the Gentiles, and in that it is fulfilled that they have been.

Can you explain how chapter 53 could be about the nation of Israel as a whole?

What specifically do you think the Passover lamb has to do with Jesus?

I'll try to get back to this later (perhaps tomorrow). I need to close up and commute.

[flames]

I think we should worship and talk about our ancestors this much instead. You know, the people who did all the hard work to get us here, and not the guy who has no formal burial ground and sparked endless wars over nothing.

[Metamorph]

Can anyone imagine this: It is the Apocalypse. Jesus is riding around on a white horse with the angels of destruction behind him. The world is destroyed and now we will be in the Eternal Kingdom if we followed the true Messiah, and the pit of fire and brimstone where the worm dieth not and there is wailing and gnashing of teeth if we were astray. It turns out the new Paradise is filled with nothing but people who run around arguing for Christianity like @Director Abbie, and all the people who did not follow a puritanical code like @flames are getting boiled by Satan. What are all the "good Christians" going to do now, debate nuances of theology for unending aeons incomprehensible to average mortals? Do laps around their mansions with Jesus, Jewish Zeus God, and Red Flame Dove and mix it up with angels? Whenever a self-proclaimed Christian's (or anyone else's) main hobby seems to be debating religion with nearly everyone they meet, they lose credibility in my eyes, because I can't imagine a Paradise full of people like that even beginning to work. Adding unlimited free tours of Hell with Virgil where you can gloat at all the people you once beat in an argument while demons roast them and poke pitchforks into their buttocks does not seem to make it work, either.

[FreelancePoliceman]

It wasn't expected by Rome; it was expected by Israel. Because people's identities were so closely tied to the land: the promised land, the land portioned out to their ancestors at the time of Joshua. They were heavily invested in genealogies, and that involved the place of their ancestry. Whenever a census was taken in the Old Testament, it was according to the tribes, so when Rome ordered a census, Israel would again have tried to do it according to tribes.

Firstly, why would Rome care about which tribes the Jews claimed to be from? Besides, there were only three tribes left by this point, and I guess that two of them were almost rounding errors by this point. Secondly, why would people be made to travel to to the homes of the ancestors for this census? There's absolutely no reason for Quirinius to order this, and it's insane to expect that he imagined hundreds of thousands to millions of people to migrate for this. Nothing like this has never happened in the history of censuses, because it's utterly pointless and a colossal waste of effort on the part of both the population and government.

That'll be at the second coming.

So it hasn't been fulfilled yet.

You have exactly the same mindset of the Jews at Jesus's time: expecting the messiah to be as one of the judges of old who rose up to save them from a political enemy. But as Jesus explained to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36-37; cf. Ephesians 6:12)

So Jesus didn't fulfill any of the prophecies about overcoming political enemies.

Yes, my pastor mentioned that the word means "young woman" and the passage quoted about the child in his sermon Sunday, as well as the fact that Jesus's name was Joshua not Immanuel and the reasoning for that.
https://www.lakemeadbaptist.org/uplo...n_12.22.19.mp3

I apologize; I'm not going to listen to a sermon for the sake of this conversation. If you'd like to write out the relevant points, I'll be happy to respond.

It's clear that it's all addressed to the children of Israel. Except for chapter 45, which is addressed to a gentile ruler, and chapter 47, which is addressed to Gentiles though clearly with the intent of being overheard by the Jews. It's not all about them as a people. For example, chapter 49 speaks of the "Redeemer of Israel" who will "raise up the tribes of Jacob." This evidently isn't about the nation as a whole, and from the last verse it is shown that this Redeemer is God Himself...who is also His Servant.

I'm sorry; can you spell this out for me further? I see nowhere in that God is identified as His own servant in that chapter. The word "servant" appears three times in Isaiah 49:

Verse 3: And He said to me, ""You are My servant, Israel, about whom I will boast.""

Verses 5-6: "And now, the Lord, Who formed me [Israel] from the womb as a servant to Him, said to bring Jacob back to Him, and Israel shall be gathered to Him, and I will be honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God was my strength. And He said, "It is too light for you to be My servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the besieged of Israel, but I will make you a light of nations, so that My salvation shall be until the end of the earth."

Where is this servant said, or even implied, to be God?

But things can refer to both the Christ and to the nation. In the seed of Abraham the nations of the world would be blessed. This is both in the seed as in descendants and in the Seed singular (Galatians 3:16-17). Israel was meant to be a light to the gentiles, but they failed in that calling. Yet One came from Israel who is a light to the Gentiles, and in that it is fulfilled that they have been.

And your evidence for this is?

Can you explain how chapter 53 could be about the nation of Israel as a whole?

Sure. As you've seen, the "servant" referred to in Isaiah is repeatedly and consistently identified as Israel itself. The "he" referred to throughout 53 is identified in 52 as this servant -- Israel. The prophet speaks in metaphorical and poetic language; this servant is referred to as an actual person, who's been disfigured and marred by the nations to which he's been given up. Seeing the horrible state of the Jewish people and it's been made to suffer, the nations conclude that God has abandoned this servant. Yet in all this the Jews do not protest. They don't revolt; they don't attack their pagan oppressors. It also says that somehow this suffering is vicarious; that it somehow prevents God from punishing these nations for their sins (or perhaps that they don't incur a penalty for persecuting the Jews?), and that as a result of this, God will one day elevate the nation of Israel above others, and Israel will become "a witness to nations" and "a ruler and a commander of nations."

Now, I'm not religious, but this interpretation does seem true to life, doesn't it? The Jewish people have indeed been persecuted throughout history, and it's certainly a common belief in mainstream Christianity and Islam that the Diaspora, destruction of the Temple, and the various sufferings Jews have endured throughout history indicate God has abandoned the covenant he made with Israel. And despite these Holocausts and pogroms and massacres, Jews indeed had done nothing to deserve these, and generally haven't rioted or acted violently in response to them.

I'll try to get back to this later (perhaps tomorrow). I need to close up and commute.

Sure. I'm a bit rushed for time myself, so I apologize if I missed any points you brought up. Feel free to mention them again and point them out in your next post, and I'll try to get to them next time.

[Metamorph]

@FreelancePoliceman

1. Most of these are variations on standard Christian arguments that have existed nearly unchanged for millennia. The exact problem is that there are variations, but poetic arguments are important even solely within the Old Testament.

2. The Jews do seem exalted, incidentally, based on how much hate they get for their achievements and for things like founding Israel, and I think many want to rebuild the Temple. Also, I wouldn't use the term Holocaust unironically since the Nazis called it that in the belief they were sacrificing Jews to pagan gods, and many Christian's belief the Jews were being sacrificed to the Abrahamic God. Even if you believe all the Jews who died somehow deserved or needed to die it seems to have rather Antisemitic implications. Summarized, equating 1. the actual event (industrial mass murder) 2. the planned event (genocide of Jews) 3. a sacrifice to a god/s unironically is factually and ethically problematic in various ways. The way it's a problem is basically Borromean rings, where if you remove one it can't be the Holocaust but all three did not factually happen or the Nazis would have proved their Aryan god. Nazis deny the Holocaust on point 2. and people referring to the Shoah could technically be considered denying the Holocaust for that reason, but that will never be prosecuted luckily even if that's the term Jews and firsthand spectators who were not Nazis used for the event 1. which was not 2. because lack of 3.

[gone]

Your mom was born Dec 25 because I banged your mom's mom March 27

[Kill4Me]

Jesus deserves a holiday for being the greatest conman in world history, because there are still billions of people who believe that virgin birth and human resurrection are biologically possible.

[Farag]

I didn't watch the video by the way.

but Huh, it's 2020 "since jesus was born", and that means if jesus was born before that even before 300 years jesus will still be born in the same time it just will make difference to know the time since he was born, it doesn't make difference, it doesn't make sense to argue on that.