Emmanystone:
A discussion in my opinion should be to learn not to win or be the one to have the last word. That said, pls can we try be objective in our thoughts here?

Emmanystone:
[quote author=Emmanystone post=66450406]A discussion in my opinion should be to learn not to win or be the one to have the last word. That said, pls can we try be objective in our thoughts here?

Emmanystone:
First seta of questions i have been trying to put forward are;
Who was Ezra?
When did he live?
What do you mean he wrote the Torah?
Is it the same with the case of Catholicism putting together the Bible books and claiming they wrote it?

Ezra, Hebrew ʿezraʾ, (flourished 4th century bc, Babylon and Jerusalem), religious leader of the Jews who returned from exile in Babylon, reformer who reconstituted the Jewish community on the basis of the Torah (Law, or the regulations of the first five books of the Old Testament). His work helped make Judaism a religion in which law was central, enabling the Jews to survive as a community when they were dispersed all over the world. Since his efforts did much to give Jewish religion the form that was to characterize it for centuries after, Ezra has with some justice been called the father of Judaism; i.e., the specific form the Jewish religion took after the Babylonian Exile. So important was he in the eyes of his people that later tradition regarded him as no less than a second Moses.

Knowledge of Ezra is derived from the biblica

PastorAIO:

I don't personally know who wrote about the Book of Wars in the Torah, but I do know that it is in the Torah and I also know that Moses couldn't have written the Torah because the Torah tells us about Moses' death.

You'll find mention of the Book of Wars in Numbers.
aka Bamidbar

PastorAIO:

Since ezra qualifies as a 'who' then Whoever includes him too so no need to poo in your pants. Nobody is shifting any grounds. I repeat, I believe that the Torah was redacted numerous times. I also feel that Josiah's 'discovery' contributed to the Torah and it may well be Ezra who finalized the version we have today.

PastorAIO:

Ezra could have had a hand in the Torah as it has come down to us because he was a very prominent figure in Jewish religion. It is believed by Jews that Ezra was second to no one except Moses amongst the prophets. He is more respected than Elijah Isaiah etc etc etc..

PastorAIO:

Ezra made many amendments to the Jewish religion and those amendments and redactions can be seen clearly where there seem to be contradictions in the letter and the spirit of the Torah. Ezra had a very racist streak and I feel that he injected that into the Torah.

PastorAIO:

The reason that I brought up the Book of Wars is to show you that the Torah had other books it was sourced from and made reference to. Also folk songs and general Hebrew Lore was source material for the torah. t and those wars continued after Moses died.

PastorAIO:


I think the main point where you do not get what I am saying and subsequently everything goes over your head is around this issue of a singular author of the Torah.

I will repeat my point very slowly:

The Torah came to it's present form over centuries of redaction and additions.

Emmanystone:

Can a man [Ezra] who had died before the last book of the Old Testament (Malachi)was written said to havs been the one who wrote it?

This is really not sensible if you ask me. The Bible (Torah) is a collection of books (Prophesies mostly) written by different prophets, accounts of the Kings, Shepherds, and laymen. All these men lived in different times. If you insist because Ezra is a 'Who' hence; qualifies as the writer of the Old Testament, then Ezra must be immortal. That will also mean, all the prophets never lived or lived only in Ezra's mind.

Emmanystone:



The bolded is where the issue lies. Your feelings. Our feelings ahould not count here. What does the records say?

1After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. 2For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” 3As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.

12Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’

10And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. 11Now then make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” 12Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, “It is so; we must do as you have said. 13But the people are many, and it is a time of heavy rain; we cannot stand in the open. Nor is this a task for one day or for two, for we have greatly transgressed in this matter.

18Now there were found some of the sons of the priests who had married foreign women: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah, some of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers. 19They pledged themselves to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt

44All these had married foreign women, and some of the women had even borne children.

Emmanystone:

If that is the case, it validates the claims that Ezra wrote it?

sonmvayina:


Moses is just a character in the story, it is a spiritual story not a historical one...it means growing from spiritual ignorance (slavey in Egypt) to spiritual enlightenment ( the promised Land) it is expected that age 40 you should have arrived there..

PastorAIO:


Your confusion lies where you cannot tell the difference between fiction and history. Someone calls a book fiction and you say the person is confused because there are ccharacters in the fiction book that according to the fiction lived before the writer of the book.

JMAN05:


How did you come to the conclusion that it is fiction, and who do you think wrote the book?

JMAN05:


If I understand you, you are saying that the story is symbolic/allegorical, not real life story? If that is what you mean, why do you view it as so?

Emmanystone:

If Moses didn't write the Torah, i hope you know that you and i will not come close to know it? The Jews will be in that position to know. They wont hold Moses with the kind of reverence they do.

No Nation in the Hisyory of men keeps records by mouth to mouth preservation like the Jews. Their God told them to tell their children and have their Children tell their own Children about their origin, till His promises for them are fulfilled.

sonmvayina post=66482974:
I

Yes that is what I mean...because the people who it was written for and the people that wrote it says it is a spiritual journey not a literal one..

The rabbi at Golders green synagogue in London told me, when I was there...we lived on the same street..

sonmvayina:
I

Yes that is what I mean...because the people who it was written for and the people that wrote it says it is a spiritual journey not a literal one..

The rabbi at Golders green synagogue in London told me, when I was there...we lived on the same street..

sonmvayina:


God is the totality of the consciousness of the universe....
The stories are allegorical...

sonmvayina:
I

Yes that is what I mean...because the people who it was written for and the people that wrote it says it is a spiritual journey not a literal one..

The rabbi at Golders green synagogue in London told me, when I was there...we lived on the same street..

Emmanystone:
[b][/b]
For you to quote this and mention me means you believe what he said right?

So you believe a Jewish Rabbi will tell a Gentile that the Nation of Israel was never captives in Egypt at point in time, and there was never a Red Sea Crossing? The 40yrs wandering in the Wilderness never happened. You believe a Moses never lived as a human? Meaning there was no Wars which led to the Conquest of Canaan?

Are you this desperate?

Emmanystone:


So you believe a Jewish Rabbi will tell a Gentile that the Nation of Israel was never captives in Egypt at point in time, and there was never a Red Sea Crossing? The 40yrs wandering in the Wilderness never happened. You believe a Moses never lived as a human? Meaning there was no Wars which led to the Conquest of Canaan?

Are you this desperate?

Emmanystone:
For you to quote this and mention me means you believe what he said right?

So you believe a Jewish Rabbi will tell a Gentile that the Nation of Israel was never captives in Egypt at point in time,
and there was never a Red Sea Crossing?
The 40yrs wandering in the Wilderness never happened.
You believe a Moses never lived as a human?
Meaning there was no Wars which led to the Conquest of Canaan?

Are you this desperate?

PastorAIO:
I have no reason to disbelief the man.
Plus, his rabbi friend is not the only rabbi that will affirm that.

Not only will rabbis say it never happened but historians too will agree with them. Especially the top Jewish historians.

The Egyptians would were meticulous record keepers never made a single mention of the event either

PastorAIO:
The Jews were Canaanites who overthrew their ruling class and created an anarchist society.
Out of this a new religion slowly emerged out of the old religions of the canaanites.
But it was a long and protracted process.

JMAN05:


"The people that wrote it". Where did these people that wrote it say it wasn't real? And which people wrote it?

MuttleyLaff:
Not only desperate but more

Swot up on the Egyptian sage named Ipuwer

This post is so fubar
I expect this coming from a dissembler
and so not surprised at the bunglings, misinformation or having the Jews mixed up with the Hyksos

MuttleyLaff:

No one dragged you here kicking and screaming
You, on your own volition, slithered in
and it was when or after, I spotted you loitering about the pages of the thread, that I remarked:
PastorAIO, its turn by turn,
I read where you and Ubenedictus used emmany and mutty in codes to mention Emmanystone and I,
and I laughed at how I got misconstrued
but I will respond when you both, get to the front of the queue

Long-established you think too highly of yourself

William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject. In the following interview, Dever describes some of the most significant archeological finds related to the Hebrew Bible,




The origins of Israel
What have archeologists learned from these settlements about the early Israelites? Are there signs that the Israelites came in conquest, taking over the land from Canaanites?

The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.

So what we are dealing with is a movement of peoples but not an invasion of an armed corps from the outside. A social and economic revolution, if you will, rather than a military revolution. And it begins a slow process in which the Israelites distinguish themselves from their Canaanite ancestors, particularly in religion—with a new deity, new religious laws and customs, new ethnic markers, as we would call them today.

Ipuwer and the Book of Exodus

Ipuwer has been often put forward in popular literature as confirmation of the Biblical account, most notably because of its statement that "the river is blood" and its frequent references to servants running away, but these arguments ignore the many points on which Ipuwer contradicts Exodus, such as the fact that its Asiatics are arriving in Egypt rather than leaving, and the likelihood that the "river is blood" phrase may refer to the red sediment colouring the Nile during disastrous floods, or may simply be a poetic image of turmoil.[10] The archeological evidence does not support the story of the Exodus, and most histories no longer consider it relevant to the story of the emergence of Israel.[11][12]

PastorAIO:


Basic reasoning ability would tell you that the point o was making was that your manner of reasoning ( that Jews would know best, better than even yourself) does not favour your stance.
Just the simple fact that Jewish rabbis reject your jesus as the messiah should have been enough to shut your mouth on the line of thinking. But you lacked the capacity to realise that you were arguing against yourself.

PastorAIO:


I have no reason to disbelief the man. Plus, his rabbi friend is not the only rabbi that will affirm that.

Not only will rabbis say it never happened but historians too will agree with them. Especially the top Jewish historians.

The Egyptians would were meticulous record keepers never made a single mention of the event either.

The Jews were Canaanites who overthrew their ruling class and created an anarchist society. Out of this a new religion slowly emerged out of the old religions of the canaanites. But it was a long and protracted process.

Emmanystone:

If Moses didn't write the Torah, i hope you know that you and i will not come close to know it? The Jews will be in that position to know. They wont hold Moses with the kind of reverence they do.

No Nation in the Hisyory of men keeps records by mouth to mouth preservation like the Jews. Their God told them to tell their children and have their Children tell their own Children about their origin, till His promises for them are fulfilled.

Emmanystone:

Oh, this pastor has no idea what he is talking about.
If only you knew that the Jews' temporal rejection of their Messiah is not of their making. You read and quote from the Scriptures but only when you dishonestly know that taking the verse out of context will project your twisted intent.

Now, here is what the Scriptures says about the Jews rejecting their messiah for now; I said 'for now', because, when this dispensation closes, they'll come to the realization of who Christ truly is and shall embrace Him.

GNT 11:7-12
What then? The people of Israel did not find what they were looking for. It was only the small group that God chose who found it; the rest grew deaf to God's call.

As the scripture says, “God made their minds and hearts dull; to this very day they cannot see or hear.”

And David says, “May they be caught and trapped at their feasts; may they fall, may they be punished!

May their eyes be blinded so that they cannot see; and make them bend under their troubles at all times.” I ask, then: When the Jews stumbled, did they fall to their ruin?

By no means! Because they sinned, salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make the Jews jealous of them.

[The sin of the Jews brought rich blessings to the world, and their spiritual poverty brought rich blessings to the Gentiles]

Then, how much greater the blessings will be when the complete number of Jews is included!

The Jews rejection of their Messiah opened a door for us Gentiles to accept Jesus. This is the Church Age, when this despensation closes with the rapture, all the Jews shall turn to their Messiah.

Romans 11:13-22
[b]I am speaking now to you Gentiles: As long as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I will take pride in my work.

Perhaps I can make the people of my own race jealous, and so be able to save some of them.

For when they were rejected, all other people were changed from God's enemies into his friends.

What will it be, then, when they are accepted? It will be life for the dead!

If the first piece of bread is given to God, then the whole loaf is his also; and if the roots of a tree are offered to God, the branches are his also.

Some of the branches of the cultivated olive tree have been broken off, and a branch of a wild olive tree has been joined to it.

You Gentiles are like that wild olive tree, and now you share the strong spiritual life of the Jews.

So then, you must not despise those who were broken off like branches.

How can you be proud? You are just a branch; you don't support the roots—the roots support you.

But you will say, “Yes, but the branches were broken off to make room for me.” That is true.

They were broken off because they did not believe, while you remain in place because you do believe. But do not be proud of it; instead, be afraid.

God did not spare the Jews, who are like natural branches; do you think he will spare you? Here we see how kind and how severe God is.

He is severe toward those who have fallen, but kind to you—if you continue in his kindness. But if you do not, you too will be broken off.[/b]

Can you see why the Jews don't believe in Jesus yet?

I'm waiting for your twisted mind to come up with another twisted and warped views.

Emmanystone:


@the bolded, at what point in history did this happen? I mean the Jews overthrowing the Canaanite ruling class?

PastorAIO:


It is the theory that I find most reasonable. It happened over the course of centuries. roughly from about 1300bce to 800 bce.

PastorAIO:
Still maintaining a limited intellectual capacity.

Inside all this one that you've spewed now, will you still say that Jews ought to know more than you or not?

Emmanystone:

Biko Machi onu gi.

Do you even know what allegory means?