Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
The word “Immanuel” does not mean "God has become a man and walks among us" nor does it mean "God has become flesh and is with us as a man". Such assertions contradict the word of God. According to God, he isn't a man, as we find in (Numbers 23:19) “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
Christian Proof-Texting
Misquoting Texts – What does Tanach really say?
The claim of Paul and the New Testament authors is that Jesus fulfilled many prophecies connected to the Hebrew Scriptures (so-called Old Testament) and a true believer will easily be able to see them. The gospel according to Matthew, in particular, attempts to cross-reference the miraculous birth, deeds, and proclamations attributed to Jesus with relevant passages found in Tanach.
Not one verse from Tanach proves the messiahship of Jesus. On the contrary, our Jewish sages, for two millennia have had ample time to analyze and decipher all 22,000+ verses in Tanach, and have concluded that Jesus did not fulfill any of its prophecies, nor are there any passages that unambiguously allude to his life or ministry. On the contrary, we will discover how the New Testament distorts and contorts Tanach to make it “bend” to their a priori agenda to “prove” their beliefs about Jesus. Let’s see!
In a certain way, Fundamentalist missionaries shoot the arrow in the target and then draw the bull’s eye around the arrow. In this fashion, they claim to always be correct, making the evidence conform to their foregone conclusions.
Let’s begin with a verse taken out of context (a verse out of context is a pretext):.....
“And he arose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt; and remained there until the death of Herod, that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “Out of Egypt did I call my son.”
Matthew 2:14
This passage is found at the beginning of the gospel of Matthew where we find Joseph, the husband of Mary, fleeing from Herod with his wife and infant son. The writer wants us to identify this event with a verse that seems to refer to a person called “son” – that is, to prove Jesus was called then “son of God.” Matthew also attempts to demonstrate that the passage identifies one detail of the life of Jesus – namely his exile to Egypt and eventual ascendancy from there.Here is the passage in Tanach Matthew was trying to “latch on to” for his “proof:”
Among the major problems with Matthew’s attribution of this verse to Jesus is that in context the entire chapter in Hoshea is clearly speaking about the Jewish people as “My son.” This is a very common metaphor in Tanach, where the collective body of the Jewish people is called “God’s son,” or “firstborn.”
• Note: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.”
Hoshea 11:1
However, despite this subterfuge by the author of Matthew, Fundamentalist Christians have no problem rationalizing this for it follows Paul’s teachings of using deception, as we mentioned earlier.Here is another example:
“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being translated means, God with us.”
Matthew 1:22-23
What is significant here is not only is this verse being taken out of context, it is also being mistranslated (more examples of this to follow). This verse is the basis for Christian theology concerning the miraculous “Virgin Birth” of Jesus. The manufacture of this myth fits a 1st Century mindset where it was very common amongst pagans to venerate their leaders as being “born of God.” It freed them from the “taint” of being conceived by “sinful” human flesh. It is also one of the main verses that attempt to prove the idea of a corporeal god and the divinity of Jesus from the translation of the name “Immanuel,” as “God with us.”Problems with Matthew’s manipulation of this verse:
• How can the birth of a virgin be a sign for anyone? Only God knows the inner secrets of a person, thus, one’s virginity is ultimately a hidden matter
Christian Proof-Texting
Misquoted texts and misinformation is what is being spread. Let us find out what the truth actually is, especially Matthew's attributions.
jewsforjudaism.org
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