Who are the seven heads of Revelation 17?

[Pickle]

16 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Enoch was represented as the seventh from Adam because he was the perfection of Adam. That is what the number seven represents. Perfection. Enoch was Adam reborn --made perfect.

No. Enoch is the seventh from Adam because he is the seventh in the genealogy.

[Pickle]

16 hours ago, MCBGM said:

They aren't Jews.

This is the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not.

I did ask you to leave the bigotry out of the discussion. But it is really odd that you would cite a statement of Jesus from a book that calls Him the Lord God of the holy prophets to try to say that any Jew who believes that the divine Angel of the OT was Christ can't really be a Jew. That doesn't compute.

Maybe what we should instead conclude is that any Jew who rejects Christ being the Messiah can't really be a Jew. It would make about as much sense.

[Pickle]

16 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Psalm 2 merely mentions the then reigning King (King David) at Jerusalem. It is not a prophecy. Not the messianic prophecy Christians have made of it.

No, it is a Messianic prophecy, as Jews in the NT make clear. Note that I have cited a biblical basis for my statement, and you have not. You're still just making assertions.

So we are to believe that God gave to King David the nations of earth as an inheritance? And that David was God's begotten son?

[Pickle]

16 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Of course you don't believe me. Did you think I thought you would?

You should expect me to believe you if you provide some sort of logical basis for your assertions. But you're expecting mere assertions to be convincing to me or others, and mere assertions don't cut it.

Besides, your mere assertion that Yoma 39a showed that murders were the reason for the signs those last 40 years turned out to be false. It is clear, then, that mere assertions are unreliable.

15 hours ago, MCBGM said:

From highly respected and well known Orthodox Rabbi Joseph Telushkin:

"Every year... Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) was read... my deeply religious father would lament... It's a very un-Jewish book.... I have increasingly come to agree with my father's assessment. ...In the end, they included it for two reasons: because of their belief that it was written by King Solomon, and because of its concluding verse" --Jewish Literacy, p. 99.

And this statement appears to prove you wrong as well. "I have increasingly come to agree" means that he didn't agree before, and thus all Judaism must not believe Ecclesiastes to be uninspired as you claimed. The statement certainly doesn't assert that all Judaism believes this way, which was the point you made.

[Pickle]

15 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Here's part of the secret. (Not a secret to Jews for the most part, but a secret kept secret from Christians.)

For the most part, the "Jews" of Judea were not Jewish.

Nearly the entire Jewish population at that time, including nearly all of the leadership, lived nowhere near Judea, but far away in what was then distant Mesopotamia. These regarded the "Jews" of Judea as apostates --false Jews.

This is because, when the decree went forth that the Jews in captivity could return to Judea, the vast majority refused to do so, but remained in Mesopotamia (the easternmost corner of the Promised Land, Genesis 15:18) where they stayed up until about 1000 years ago, until Muslim invaders finally pushed them into Europe. All modern Jews descend from these Jews of Mesopotamia.

They never even heard about Jesus. Christian missionaries never were sent to them.

Meanwhile, of the small minority of Jews who did return to Judea, nearly all soon gave up and went back to Mesopotamia, leaving only a few wealthy aristocrats behind. These aristocrats (of the priestly class) took over the government of Judea even though they were never authorized to do so, setting themselves up as kings and princes over the local population who were almost entirely pagan in origin, not even Jewish by birth.

The pagan population of Judea eventually were forced to convert to Judaism, actually a perverted form of Judaism heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. But as with all forced conversions, they continued to hold pagan beliefs and customs in private.

Just 100 years before the birth of Jesus, nearly the entire population of Judea had been full-blown pagans, therefore. And little really had changed by the time of Jesus. These were the "Jews" who rejected Jesus.

Maybe I should have read this first before replying to the other posts.

None of the Nestorian Christians reached these Mesopotamian Jews before 1000 AD?

Acts 2:8-9  And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,

None of these were really from Mesopotamia, and thus none of them ever heard of Jesus?

Acts 2:36  Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Thus, the dwellers in Mesopotamia were in some way to blame for crucifying Jesus, maybe since they were part of the nation too, or maybe because the lynch mob outside Pilate's judgment hall that called for His crucifixion included some who had come from Mesopotamia for the Passover. Or maybe there's another reason.

I have wondered about the priestly class becoming kings. And I've read somewhere about the forced conversions of Edomites being in part what led to Herod the Great becoming king of Judea.

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Pickle]

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Like I said. You miss a lot.

It's clear. You do not know how to read ... Talmud at least.

And so, rather than contribute something constructive, you stoop to insults.

Like I said, I don't get why that fellow that you posted a link to said that good works atone for sin, because they don't. Now if you are suggesting that the Talmud teaches such a heresy, then that is a very big problem.

[Pickle]

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Missionaries were sent to Mesopotamia. But not to the Jews of Mesopotamia.

In fact Christian missionaries were forbidden by their own Christian leaders even to go anywhere near them.

Now, Jewish merchants from Mesopotamia sometimes journeyed as far as Judea. Some of them of course learned about Jesus and became Christians. But these did not return to the Jews of Mesopotamia. Because Church leaders forbade Christian missionaries ever to go near that place.

Again, just mere assertions, without the least amount of support given.

Where is the evidence that Nestorian missionaries were forbidden to go anywhere near Jews?

[Pickle]

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

You can't increase zero. Anything multiplied by zero remains zero.

The increase was in his agreement. He always agreed, to some degree, but even more so as he matured in understanding.

He is by no means the only Jewish authority I could cite on this. But what difference would it make?

Would you change your mind if I presented a hundred such statements, from a hundred different Orthodox authorities?

Of course not. If there's one thing you've demonstrated here, it's an extreme inflexibility of belief.

You certainly haven't demonstrated a large amount of flexibility.

The problem is the breadth of your statements. You didn't say "some within Judaism" or "most of Judaism." You made a blanket claim about all of Judaism not regarding the Writings as authoritative or inspired. Citing the opinion of a single rabbi about a single Bible book doesn't cut it when trying to support the statements you made. Especially is this so if I raised the question of the Karaites, and all you quote from are Orthodox writers.

[Pickle]

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

You're calling it bigotry doesn't make it so.

Certainly. But you said that any Jew who says that the divine messenger in the OT must be Christ isn't a Jew, and that's bigotry, in my opinion.

 

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

It's preposterous to claim you know more about what a Jew is than the Jews themselves do. The only people on earth who have any right at all to say what a Jew is, are the Jewish people themselves as a majority.

You're forgetting something:

Romans 2:26-28  Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

That's what a Jewish scholar wrote, a Jewish scholar who said that he was imprisoned "for the hope of Israel," and taught "none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come" (Acts 28:23; 26:22).

And since he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and since God is a majority, the majority has it.

 

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Jesus himself says certain people are not Jews. He calls them blasphemers instead, and in the same book repeatedly tells us not to worship him.

Nowhere in Revelation did Jesus say not to worship Him. The angel that Jesus sent said that, not Jesus.

 

19 hours ago, MCBGM said:

Blasphemy, according to its definition in the Christian Bible, is to claim that a man is God. The only "Jews" who believe a man can be God are "messianic Jews" and no one else. They are the only ones who are doing this, and so the text has to refer to them.

In NT times, before the crucifixion, we have multiple references to the Messiah being the Son of God. So no, the only Jews who have done this are not modern messianic Jews.

http://drmsh.com/the-naked-bible/two-powers-in-heaven/

Is what this fellow states accurate? He acknowledges that the early Christians were Jews, and states that between 200 BC and the second century AD, the orthodox position was that there were two Yahwehs, one visible and one invisible. Who was the second Yahweh?

"Guesses ranged from divinized humans from the stories of the Hebrew Bible to exalted angels. These speculations were not considered unorthodox. That acceptance changed when certain Jews, the early Christians, connected Jesus with this orthodox Jewish idea. This explains why these Jews, the first converts to following Jesus the Christ, could simultaneously worship the God of Israel and Jesus, and yet refuse to acknowledge any other god. Jesus was the incarnate second Yahweh. In response, as Segal’s work demonstrated, Judaism pronounced the two powers teaching a heresy sometime in the second century A.D."

Alan Segal, who is cited, was a "believing Jew" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_F._Segal). His book about the two powers of heaven is at https://books.google.com/books?id=eNQUAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover and https://books.google.com/books?id=LRzCB9xSRFsC&printsec=frontcover.

[Martn]

21 hours ago, Pickle said:

insults

It's no insult if it's the truth. (Could anything be more insulting than you're calling me a bigot?)

Fact of the matter is, you do not know how to read --Talmud. Do you think you do?

It is said that until one has learned to read Talmud, one has not really learned to read.

It's a skill most don't master until after decades of constant daily study.

You don't even understand what the Talmud is. Confusing it with the Spoken Torah, which it is not.

Talmud is largely a commentary on the Spoken Torah. It contains portions (called Mishnah) of the Spoken Torah, those parts which have been written (most remains unwritten), and the rest is commentary.

To know what the commentary (Gemara) is, one first needs at least a working knowledge of the Mishnaic portion under discussion.

[Martn]

[Pickle]

12 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

It's no insult if it's the truth. (Could anything be more insulting than you're calling me a bigot?)

I never called you a bigot, and I never intended to do so. I referred to what you wrote, not you.

[Martn]

[Martn]

21 hours ago, Pickle said:

The angel that Jesus sent said that

The angel was Jesus himself. The angel which Jesus sent was his own spirit. He came to John in the form of a spirit.

That this was no mere angel is obvious from the fact that John kept trying to worship him.

But Jesus tells John not to do it. Showing John that he did not desire to be regarded the way Christians were regarding him.

Jesus told John the very same thing previously. "Fear not," he said. Revelation 1:17.

But we are to fear God. Revelation 14:7.

To fear God is to worship God.

[Pickle]

5 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

I don't have anything I need to prove. Certainly not to you.

There are people --many people-- capable of believing only their own discoveries. Nothing --no degree of evidence-- would ever prove anything to them.

I have a right to say what I believe. I don't need anyone else to believe it. But I would like people to stop calling me a liar. There is no reason for that.

I never called you a liar.

Let all who read this know that you made the blanket, broad assertion that Christian missionaries were forbidden by their Christian leaders to reach out to Jews, and when asked to substantiate that this really occurred, that even Nestorian missionaries were forbidden to reach out to Jews, you refused.

But let's back up. You claimed that the Jews in Mesopotamia never heard of Jesus. And yet Acts 2:9 says that there were "dwellers in Mesopotamia" present at Pentecost when Peter preached. You stated in response, "Now, Jewish merchants from Mesopotamia sometimes journeyed as far as Judea. Some of them of course learned about Jesus and became Christians. But these did not return to the Jews of Mesopotamia. Because Church leaders forbade Christian missionaries ever to go near that place." And yet Acts 2 says nothing about those "dwellers in Mesopotamia" being forbidden by the apostles to return home from the feast.

And we could go further. The apostle Paul routinely started his work in each locality at a synagogue, preaching to Jews. Given that that's the historical record of his labors in Asia Minor and Europe, one must present some sort of evidence to the contrary for the missionaries that went to Mesopotamia. And besides, Antioch, where the Jewish believers in Jesus were first called Christians, isn't that far from the Euphrates. First-century Antioch Jewish Christians forbidden to witness to Jews in Mesopotamia, such that Jews in Mesopotamia never heard of Jesus? Sounds like a stretch.

[Martn]

[Martn]

[Pickle]

47 minutes ago, MCBGM said:

Like I said. You don't listen. You are so busy arguing that you don't hear what I'm saying.

I never said Christian missionaries were forbidden to witness to "Jews"  --that is "Jews" as they knew them. I said they were forbidden to go to the Jews in Mesopotamia, which in fact they never did. There is very ample evidence of that, and IF you really are willing to see it, you should have no difficulty finding it for yourself.

I already found evidence to the contrary in Acts 2, and in Paul's manner of labor.

Now if you had instead said, Catholic missionaries were forbidden by Catholic leaders to go to the Jews in Mesopotamia, I might have accepted that at face value without verifying it. But that's not what you said. Without any qualifiers as to sect or time period, you said Christian missionaries were forbidden to go to the Jews in Mesopotamia, and that's why the Jews in Mesopotamia never heard of Jesus, up till they got pushed out around 1000 years ago. I find that difficult to fathom.

You wrote: "I never said Christian missionaries were forbidden to witness to "Jews"  --that is "Jews" as they knew them. I said they were forbidden to go to the Jews in Mesopotamia, which in fact they never did."

That was in response to: "And besides, Antioch, where the Jewish believers in Jesus were first called Christians, isn't that far from the Euphrates. First-century Antioch Jewish Christians forbidden to witness to Jews in Mesopotamia, such that Jews in Mesopotamia never heard of Jesus? Sounds like a stretch."

Were you too busy arguing to hear what I was saying? Clearly, I was saying that during the first century Jews in Mesopotamia must have heard of Jesus from the Jewish Christians of Antioch.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0006_0_05555.html

Would you consider this a Jewish source? It says:

"By the end of the second century C.E. Edessa had become the center of Christianity beyond the Euphrates, and this development suggests a Jewish influence in the area during that period."

[Pickle]

1 hour ago, MCBGM said:

The angel was Jesus himself. The angel which Jesus sent was his own spirit. He came to John in the form of a spirit.

I don't think you can substantiate such assertions.

Revelation 22:6  And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.

Revelation 22:16  I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

While the angel that shows John things in Revelation twice forbade John to worship him, we find the angel named Yahweh or God that appeared to Joshua and others in the OT never forbade such worship.