Faithfulservant said:
We are told that we are to trust a prophet until they make one claim that doesnt come true and so far we haven't seen one. The bible has been spot on so far.. so I have to believe what I believe.
on the contrary, there are many prophecies that have not yet come true as far as we are concerned (i don't remember ten non-jews catching hold of the fringes of my prayer shawl and saying "let us go with you, for we have heard that G!D is with you" any time recently). through long and painful experience, we have learned to treat prophecy interpretation as a highly subjective art, which relies upon a variety of other supports rather than our own individual opinions.
But I am happy that you at least know what we believe because if we are right and suddenly a few million people disappear for no apparent reason then you will know
the "rapture", right? well, i'd say that would start to look a little bit more like proof and, yes, that would be kind of worrying, hur hur hur.
maybe you will distrust that person who is going to seem to be such a friend of Israel that brings peace to your people who will turn out to be the enemy of G!D and Israel
at the moment, the people that fit that bill rather better than anyone are the evangelical and mostly american christians who are supporting right-wing zealots in israel in the hope that it triggers armageddon. friends like that we could do without.
If we are wrong.. then oh well you dont lose anything.
yep, that's pascal's wager. mind you, pascal himself was given considerable pause for thought by our survival against all historical odds.
its a win - win situation...
unless i end up damned, of course - but i guess the question is not only whether it turns out to be a second or first coming, but also what kind of mood he's in when he shows up. he's going to have an awful backlog in his inbox based on the number of halakhic rulings that are in abeyance until he can break the logjam.
you can flame me if you want.. you can cut me with your words and its ok.
ah, faithfulservant, why would i do that? i know i can be a bit waspish from time to time but there's nothing malicious about it. you're not an idiot, you believe what you believe and more power to you; but as it says in the holy zohar:
"not in man do i trust, nor in any angelic being, but in the Holy Blessed One, Whose Torah is True."
this man after helping your people rebuild the temple after being lauded as your messiah hes going to walk into the holy of holies and declare himself God.
well, this is kind of the point, isn't it? such a blasphemy would not go unanswered. that would be prima facie evidence that we had followed a false Messiah - *again*!
you have to understand, faithfulservant, that we have had a number of false messiahs, some of whom were very successful and were widely believed in. read up on this guy:
Sabbatai Zevi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and this even worse one:
Jacob Frank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - in fact, this is unfortunately going on at the moment (
The Lubavitcher Rebbe as a god <br><br> - Haaretz - Israel News) in the lubavitch sect of the hasidim. it would be very upsetting, but it wouldn't mean the end of judaism.
Jesus, in Matthew 24:15, was speaking some 200 years after the abomination of desolation had already occurred. So, Jesus must have been prophesying that some time in the future the abomination of desolation would reoccur in a Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
or he was wrong, or there was something suspicious about that particular bit of the text. of course, those options are not open to christians.
This is confirmed by the fact that some of what Daniel prophesied in Daniel 9:27 did not occur in 167 B.C. with Antiochus Epiphanies. Antiochus did not confirm a covenant with Israel for seven years.
a quick google confirms that this is something a lot of christians are very excited about. the prophecies of daniel are not my area of expertise, but i shall investigate further and let you know what i find out.
b'shalom
bananabrain