SSadler said:

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I would join in the banter but I REALLY don't know much about this Bible stuff.

Even though I teach it . . . AT BAYLOR!

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Do you believe the historical Jesus claimed to be God?

Redbrickbear said:

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Was Jesus a resident of Judea and a member of the line of David? yes

Was he Hebrew? Yes, Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." So all sons born to a Hebrew mother are of the community of Israel.

Was he what we would call a modern jew? No.....not at all

Modern Jews are mostly Ashkenazi Jews.......and the Ashkenzai Jews are not direct descendants of the ancient Hebrew people.

"Ernest Renan and other scholars speculated that the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe originated among Turkic refugees who had migrated from the collapsed Khazarian Khanate westward into Europe, and exchanged their native Khazar language for Yiddish while continuing to practice Judaism the religion they converted to. Ancient Scythian population groups may also constitute a good portion of modern Ashkenazi Jewish lineage."


But honestly it does not matter..........after 2,000 of wondering around from country to country modern jews are so ethnically and racially mixed up that the only thing that unites them is Jewish custom and practice......and increasingly "practice' is subject to change since atheism is extremely high among jews.....plus the whole attempt to revive Hebrew by the modern state of Israel was an attempt to give modern jews a language they could all speak. So what is a jew? Its someone who calls themselves a jew and is certain they are not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.

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Modern Jews are the descendants of ancient Hebrews. Other theories are overwhelmingly contradicted by genetic evidence.

Midnight Rider said:

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And, by the way, Christianity as a religion separate and apart from Judaism didn't get started until years after the death of Jesus.

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I would like you to clarify these comments:.
1. What exactly does years later mean?
2. What exactly makes Christianity a distinct religion in your mind? Are you talking about when Christianity was made available to people other than Jews?

SSadler said:

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I would join in the banter but I REALLY don't know much about this Bible stuff.

Even though I teach it . . . AT BAYLOR!

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I was thinking same

Except your last sentence

LOL very very hard

Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Was Jesus a resident of Judea and a member of the line of David? yes

Was he Hebrew? Yes, Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." So all sons born to a Hebrew mother are of the community of Israel.

Was he what we would call a modern jew? No.....not at all

Modern Jews are mostly Ashkenazi Jews.......and the Ashkenzai Jews are not direct descendants of the ancient Hebrew people.

"Ernest Renan and other scholars speculated that the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe originated among Turkic refugees who had migrated from the collapsed Khazarian Khanate westward into Europe, and exchanged their native Khazar language for Yiddish while continuing to practice Judaism the religion they converted to. Ancient Scythian population groups may also constitute a good portion of modern Ashkenazi Jewish lineage."


But honestly it does not matter..........after 2,000 of wondering around from country to country modern jews are so ethnically and racially mixed up that the only thing that unites them is Jewish custom and practice......and increasingly "practice' is subject to change since atheism is extremely high among jews.....plus the whole attempt to revive Hebrew by the modern state of Israel was an attempt to give modern jews a language they could all speak. So what is a jew? Its someone who calls themselves a jew and is certain they are not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.

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Modern Jews are the descendants of ancient Hebrews. Other theories are overwhelmingly contradicted by genetic evidence.

---

Here is a book by an Israeli and jewish scientist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People


Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University.

Sand began his work by looking for research studies about forcible exile of Jews from the area now bordered by modern Israel, and its surrounding regions. He was astonished that he could find no such literature, he says, given that the expulsion of Jews from the region is viewed as a constitutive event in Jewish history.

The conclusion he came to from his subsequent investigation is that one single mass expulsion simply did not happen, that no one exiled the Jewish people en-mass from the region, and that the Jewish diaspora is essentially a modern invention. He accounts for the appearance of millions of Jews around the Mediterranean and elsewhere as something that came about primarily through the religious conversion of local people, saying that Judaism, contrary to popular opinion, was very much a "converting religion" in former times. He holds that mass conversions were first brought about by the Hasmoneans under the influence of Hellenism, and continued until Christianity rose to dominance in the fourth century CE.


Large scale conversions of non-jews to Judaism continued to happen at other times as well.

Sand argues that it is likely that the ancestry of most contemporary Jews stems mainly from outside the Land of Israel and that a "nation-race" of Jews with a common origin never existed, and that just as most Christians and Muslims are the progeny of converted peoples, not of the first Christians and Muslims, Jews are also descended from converts.


Again...........most modern jews are not directly descendants of the Judeans alive at the time of Jesus.

TexasScientist said:

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SSadler said:

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I would join in the banter but I REALLY don't know much about this Bible stuff.

Even though I teach it . . . AT BAYLOR!

---

Do you believe the historical Jesus claimed to be God?

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I do. I have been told the bible makes several references.

The most well known is the reference in John 8:58 where he says "Very truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!." This form at is the same way God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. Some people try to discredit this because John was written later but what is not as well known is in Matthew 14:22-33 and Mark 6:45-52, these are the stories of Jesus walking on water and in the English translations, it reads "Fear not, it is I." But in Greek, it literally means, "Fear not, I am." This is exactly what Jesus said in John 8:58 and in Exodus 3:14.

A second one is regarding when Jesus calls himself the Son of Man. There are two theories out there on what this means. One is that it simply means that he is showing his humanity by calling himself this but another that I find more persuasive is that the use of the phrase Son of Man is a direct allusion to Daniel 7:13-14. The Son of Man is a title of great exaltation not of mere humanity. The Son of Man was a divine figure in the Old Testament book of Daniel who would come at the end of the world to judge mankind and rule forever. So calling yourself the Son of Man is a claim to divinity.

A third one is in how Jesus acted and how he talked. Jesus claims to forgive sins in the synoptics which is something only God can do. He also uses language that indicates he was more than a prophet. For example, in the bible, prophets say stuff like saith the Lord, the Lord Almighty says, and Thus saith the Lord Almighty, they are always talking like this before any proclamation. But when Jesus talks he is saying stuff like Verily, verily, I say to youTruly, truly, I say to you

Then, you could point to all the references where others thought he was the Son of God from Satan, to unclean spirits, to Peter, to the Canannite woman, and God himself at Jesus's baptism and the transfiguration.

Outside of the bible, the historical record is limited given how far back this now is and that Jesus was not liked by the Jews as they called him a false messiah in their Talmud and the Romans saw him as annoyance but not a real threat as they paid their taxes and weren't revolutionaries or terrorists. But Josephus (a 1st century Jewish historian) does make a reference to Jesus when mainly talking about his brother James. In The Antiquities, he says high priest named Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus (also mentioned in the NT) to have James killed. He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others.

The above passage is interesting because James originally did not believe in Jesus but after witnessing his resurrection, he became a believer.

A second piece of information is that it appears that a total solar eclipse did take place in the year (33 AD) of Jesus's crucifixion. This is interesting because total solar eclipses only occur every 100 years or so. This eclipse is mentioned in the bible and so its proof adds support to a claim of divinity. The historical evidence supporting that a total solar eclipse comes from a historian named Thallus who in 52 AD whose work has been lost but was quoted by Julius Africanus in 221 AD. Julius says that Thallus explains away the darkness at the time of Jesus's crucifixion as being caused by an eclipse of the sun. But Julius was claiming that it couldn't have been an eclipse given when the Crucifixion occurred. This eclipse was a world event as it was seen in Rome, Athens, and other Mediterranean cities. A Greek author named Phlegon said the eclipse occurred in roughly 33 AD and it was the greatest eclipse of the sun and that it became night at noon. There was also a great earthquake in Bithynia and many things were overturned in Nicaea.

Redbrickbear said:

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Again...........most modern jews are not directly descendants of the Judeans alive at the time of Jesus.

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The Black Hebrew Israelites will love to hear you say this.

TexasScientist said:

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SSadler said:

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I would join in the banter but I REALLY don't know much about this Bible stuff.

Even though I teach it . . . AT BAYLOR!

---

Do you believe the historical Jesus claimed to be God?

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^^^ You're being baited!

Redbrickbear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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Was Jesus a resident of Judea and a member of the line of David? yes

Was he Hebrew? Yes, Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." So all sons born to a Hebrew mother are of the community of Israel.

Was he what we would call a modern jew? No.....not at all

Modern Jews are mostly Ashkenazi Jews.......and the Ashkenzai Jews are not direct descendants of the ancient Hebrew people.

"Ernest Renan and other scholars speculated that the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe originated among Turkic refugees who had migrated from the collapsed Khazarian Khanate westward into Europe, and exchanged their native Khazar language for Yiddish while continuing to practice Judaism the religion they converted to. Ancient Scythian population groups may also constitute a good portion of modern Ashkenazi Jewish lineage."


But honestly it does not matter..........after 2,000 of wondering around from country to country modern jews are so ethnically and racially mixed up that the only thing that unites them is Jewish custom and practice......and increasingly "practice' is subject to change since atheism is extremely high among jews.....plus the whole attempt to revive Hebrew by the modern state of Israel was an attempt to give modern jews a language they could all speak. So what is a jew? Its someone who calls themselves a jew and is certain they are not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.

---

Modern Jews are the descendants of ancient Hebrews. Other theories are overwhelmingly contradicted by genetic evidence.

---

Here is a book by an Israeli and jewish scientist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_the_Jewish_People


Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University.

Sand began his work by looking for research studies about forcible exile of Jews from the area now bordered by modern Israel, and its surrounding regions. He was astonished that he could find no such literature, he says, given that the expulsion of Jews from the region is viewed as a constitutive event in Jewish history.

The conclusion he came to from his subsequent investigation is that one single mass expulsion simply did not happen, that no one exiled the Jewish people en-mass from the region, and that the Jewish diaspora is essentially a modern invention. He accounts for the appearance of millions of Jews around the Mediterranean and elsewhere as something that came about primarily through the religious conversion of local people, saying that Judaism, contrary to popular opinion, was very much a "converting religion" in former times. He holds that mass conversions were first brought about by the Hasmoneans under the influence of Hellenism, and continued until Christianity rose to dominance in the fourth century CE.


Large scale conversions of non-jews to Judaism continued to happen at other times as well.

Sand argues that it is likely that the ancestry of most contemporary Jews stems mainly from outside the Land of Israel and that a "nation-race" of Jews with a common origin never existed, and that just as most Christians and Muslims are the progeny of converted peoples, not of the first Christians and Muslims, Jews are also descended from converts.


Again...........most modern jews are not directly descendants of the Judeans alive at the time of Jesus.

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Shlomo Sand isn't a scientist. He's a Marxist historian with an anti-Zionist agenda. In any case, there is a grain of truth in your post. The diaspora didn't happen all at once, and many Jews are of mixed lineage. Conversion happened mainly through intermarriage, however, which is why most modern Jews are still of Hebrew ancestry. Mainstream scholars today regard the Khazar theory as a myth.

I just learned about another bible reference where Jesus claims to be the messiah. This one happens when John The Baptist sends his people to ask Jesus if he is the one. Jesus answers in Matthew 11:4-5

4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:
5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

A scholar says this is in reference to Isaiah 35 which would have been interpreted as answering yes to John The Baptist's question of being the one as Jesus doing all these miracles was a fulfillment of that prophecy.

Early Christianity was spread by Jews preaching about Jesus at Passover and then at synagogues. Similar to Luther with the Reformation, the purpose wasn't too start a new religion so much as change Judaism into Christianity as the Messiah had come and the Jews therefore are waiting for nothing.

In fact, the reason Christians typically worship on Sunday is because the early Jewiah Christians would still attend synagogue on Saturday and then have "church" on Sunday.

Paul likely wasn't the first, but eventually he started targeting Greeks specifically after enough Jews rejected the message. Previously he'd preached to Greeks in synagogues when they were there, but he didn't really start focusing on them until a few years into his ministry.

Acts is an interesting read even if you don't believe the theology. It's mainly a historical account written by Luke about the early church beginning with a strong focus on Paul as that's who Luke was with most of time.

TexasScientist said:

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SSadler said:

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I would join in the banter but I REALLY don't know much about this Bible stuff.

Even though I teach it . . . AT BAYLOR!

---

Do you believe the historical Jesus claimed to be God?

---

The only evidence we have of his words is really clear that Jesus made that claim as well as those that followed him while he was physically on this Earth. They even claimed it after persecutions were common in the later '60s. Obviously most of those that saw Jesus in the flesh were dead by then but at least one (John) was around.