Messianic Judaism

[Revolg]

Question:

Should we consider keeping the Shabbat in light of fulfilled prophecy and should we only say Yahushua or Y'shua as we pray?

[Jason Clark]

Well, on one level you don't have to. ie. there's no obligation to now.

On the other as a witness to your family and friends among the Jews you should not neglect the observances of the Jewish religion so they don't feel you've become a gentile.

That's just what I think anyway.

Y'shua is the accepted form of Jesus, I think. Perhaps a Hebrew scholar could tell us.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Hopefully you don't mind a Gentile butting in...

On the issue of Y'shua, I have given a bit of thought to this, and here is my two cents... I was wondering why we had to "change" or "transliterate" any of the names in the Bible to begin with - it is not like the changes make them more meaningful in the host language. A name is a very personal thing... and since it adds nothing to understanding to change it, then why did we? Y'shua was Jesus' name, I would prefer to use it as it was given, and oftentimes do. Just my thoughts.

[Socrates]

I recommend Ariel Ministries, founded by the extremely erudite Hebrew Christian scholar Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum http://www.ariel.org/ On this site he has an excellent article about the relevance of the Mosaic Law for the believer today, The Law of Moses and the Law of Christ (http://www.ariel.org/ff00006f.html) http://www.ariel.org/ff00006f.html This shows that the Sabbath is not binding today, but as Jason Clark said, it is perfectly OK to keep it as well. We have liberty in Y'shua.

I don't really think the name matters. Dr Fruchtenbaum usually simply calls him by the common English rendering Jesus, which comes from the Latin Iesus, in turn from the New Testament Greek ιησους (iesous).

As the Greek NT is inspired, there can't be anything wrong with using the Greek version of His name. Dr Fruchtenbaum has no truck with the heretical Jewish Roots Movement (which is run by Gentiles not Jews) which claims that the Greek NT is a corruption of lost Hebrew originals. Of course, by its very nature claims about what these lost originals said are impossible to prove, but we are simply supposed to believe that this lost Hebrew NT said what the Jewish Roots bozos claim.

Note also, most of the English names for OT characters are really Grecianized forms of the Hebrew, e.g. Abel (Heb. Khevel), Phineas (Pinchas), Jeremiah (Greek Ieremias, cf. Hebrew Yirmeyahu), Moses (Heb. Moshe), Solomon (Shlomo), Isaiah (Greek Esaias, cf. Heb. Yeshayahu), Isaac (Yitskhaq).

[bar Jonah]

Agreed. Y'shua IS our rest. He IS our Sabbath. The Sabbath is completely fulfilled. To try to observe it out of some perceived necessity is legalism in one of its worst forms.

That said, there's nothing wrong with worshipping on the Sabbath. If one wants to worship on Saturday, that is fine.

[Socrates]

Agreed. People are now free to observe Jewish laws if they want (apart from ones like sacrificing for sin which have been superseded by the Messiah's sacrifice). They are also free not to observe them. A Jew should not have to eat pork to show that he believes in Y'shua, but nor should he look down on Jewish Christians who eat pork. Same with Saturday or Sunday observance.

[Woman]

I'm with you Dee Dee - I wish all the OT names had kept the Hebrew sounds. I do understand that since the church quickly attracted different people and was influenced by Hellenistic culture why this happened. But, it would be nice to know that we are speaking their names the way their mama's did.
:smile:

That reminds me of another question regarding names. When Mary was visited and tole that she would conceive a child, wasn't she also told what to name him? I don't recall Y'shua, but rather Immanuel. Soc?

[bar Jonah]

Today @ 09:50 PM located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=43404#post43404)
Socrates:

Agreed. People are now free to observe Jewish laws if they want (apart from ones like sacrificing for sin which have been superseded by the Messiah's sacrifice). They are also free not to observe them. A Jew should not have to eat pork to show that he believes in Y'shua, but nor should he look down on Jewish Christians who eat pork. Same with Saturday or Sunday observance.
Sunday? What's it have to do with Sunday?

The Sabbath is Saturday. The 7th day of the week. Sunday is not the Sabbath. We observe services on Sunday because that is the day of the week that Jesus arose from the dead. The day of the Resurrection. :smile:


Hey, Woman and DeeDee... If you like the original Hebrew names, there is a variation of the New King James Bible called The Complete Jewish Bible. It is a Christian Bible, with OT and NT, and is printed primarily for Messianic Jews. (There is also a version with only the NT.) I got mine through my Family Christian Store. Last year, at X-Mas, for the family I read the Christmas story with the names of people and places in their original Hebrew forms. It was really awesome, and made an extremely familiar story very fresh and new, very much alive.

In fact, I think I might have a typed copy of it on my computer if anyone's interested. Not positive, but I think so. :smile:

[Socrates]

Real Idea:
The Sabbath is Saturday. The 7th day of the week. Sunday is not the Sabbath. We observe services on Sunday because that is the day of the week that Jesus arose from the dead. The day of the Resurrection.I never claimed that the Sabbath is Sunday. I merely said, "Same with Saturday or Sunday observance," talking about when to go to Church -- i.e. it should not become a legalistic matter.

Hey, Woman and DeeDee... If you like the original Hebrew names, there is a variation of the New King James Bible called The Complete Jewish Bible. It is a Christian Bible, with OT and NT, and is printed primarily for Messianic Jews. (There is also a version with only the NT.) I got mine through my Family Christian Store. Last year, at X-Mas, for the family I read the Christmas story with the names of people and places in their original Hebrew forms. It was really awesome, and made an extremely familiar story very fresh and new, very much alive.Is this David Stern's? If so, then has lots of good points, although there are a few idiosyncratic translations that lean toward some of the things Maxell is claiming about kosher food.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Socrates that was a good point about the Greek text and the Greek renderings of names, but from what I understand we do not even use those right? But I am seeing an application of this principle though that I never saw before, not that I was ever hung up on this name issue mind you, I just found it interesting. If the Greek text written "Hellenized" the names, then I see precedent for us in communicating the Bible to Anglicize the names. I never saw this point before, as simply as it may sound.

Still, I think we have lost something in not retaining a knowledge and appreciation of the names as originally given, as Woman said, by their mommas.

[Socrates]

Woman wrote:
I'm with you Dee Dee - I wish all the OT names had kept the Hebrew sounds.I sympathize, since I'm very pro-semitic (as you could probably tell on the Politics forum :brow:). But the Hebrew names would be too guttural for most Americans :eek: I do understand that since the church quickly attracted different people and was influenced by Hellenistic culture why this happened.No, this is anachronistic. The Greek names were mainly the result of the Septuagint translation for Jews in the Diaspora -- but this was about 250 BC! So you can't blame the church for everything :hrm: But they got rid of quite a few guttural sounds for the benefit of Greek-speaking Jews and proselytes. That explains why Khevel became Abel and Pinkhas became Phineas, for example. And this explains the strange double-a (or double alpha αα) in names like Aaron and Canaan in English Bibles, whereas the names had gutturals in the Hebrew (Aharon and Kena'an where the apostrophe is a throaty glottal stop (letter ayin ע). English Bibles keep Abraham only to distinguish this from his old name Abram, but the LXX has Abraam and Abram. But there is no consistency, alas -- Jacob is Ya'aqov, with the ע again.
That reminds me of another question regarding names. When Mary was visited and tole that she would conceive a child, wasn't she also told what to name him? I don't recall Y'shua, but rather Immanuel. Soc?Immanuel means "God with us", and names in the Bible reflected the perceived character. So Matthew recognised that Jesus was the fulfilment, in line with the accepted Rabbinical exegetical practices of the day. But in the New Covenant, emphasised that the One who fulfilled this was our Savior, and this is what Jesus (Y'shua) means. That Matthew saw no problem with this is shown by Ch. 1:



20 But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit;
21 she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us).


Note that "Jesus" and "Emmanuel" have only one verse between them. So Matthew saw no inconsistency here, and neither would the Jews he was writing to convince them of the Messiahship of Jesus.

[Woman]

:gim: Thanks for the information, Soc. I could have researched it, but in addition to taking me forever it wouldn't have been as detailed. As for your politics, I steer clear of the forum for the most part. I'm quite conservative and am a very strong supporter of Israel. I've always had a fondness for Jewish culture too, though I'm woefully ignorant on any deep level.

Right Idea - Oh, great. I'll see if it's available online. If you do have the Nativity story though I'd love:hi: it if you sent it to me.

[Socrates]

:gim: I agree with both Dee Dee and Woman. It's nice to learn the Jewish names, and it helps to make people realize that the Bible was written from a Jewish frame of reference. But it's also reasonable to anglicise the names so anglophones can get their tongues around them. The leading Messianic Jewish scholar Dr Fruchtenbaum of www.ariel.org/ usually uses the common English names.

I have to admit that for a fairly rare name, I might make an attempt at the Hebrew pronunciation. Sometimes that might strange to someone who has learned the "received pronunciation" of that name in English that I wasn't aware of. E.g. I knew an Israeli girl called Tamar, but she pronounced it "Tuh MAR". So that's how I pronounced it in a Bible study home group a few years later, about Judah and Tamar. But the other people said that it's "TAY mar". In this case, I think my Israeli friend probably had a better idea of the right way to say it! :joy:

[bar Jonah]

Today @ 02:44 AM located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=43556#post43556)
Socrates:
Is this David Stern's? If so, then has lots of good points, although there are a few idiosyncratic translations that lean toward some of the things Maxell is claiming about kosher food.
Yes, this is Stern's. Tell me again, what issues do you have with this translation? Kosher foods? That's new to me. Thanks.


On a side note, not all name changes in the Bible are from the Septuagint or Hellenism. You know, there is no book of James. :brow: The book is really called Ya'akov. If we were to Hellenize or Anglicize the name, it SHOULD be "Jacob." But good ol' King James was vain enough that he wanted to see his name in the Bible. So any references in the NT to new characters/people named Ya'akov were translated as James in the 1611 Bible. And because this was the first printed Bible, virtually every other Bible since then has continued the error. Why don't we just call it what it is? The apostle Jacob. The epistle of Jacob! :smile:

[Socrates]

About Stern, like another prominent Messianic Jew, Daniel Juster, he argued against the common translation of Romans 10:4 "For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified." Instead, Stern claimed it shoud be "goal of the law", because of legalism about the Jewish Law. But this translation is not supported by the KJV, RSV, NIV, NASB, Young's Literal, Darby or Weymouth. And the lexicons give the primary meaning of telos as "end", while "goal" is actually a quaternary meaning. The lexicons of Thayer and Arndt/Gingrich give Romans 10:4 as an example of this usage! Fruchtenbaum, who's just as Jewish as Stern, pointed this out in a response to Juster (see Frucht's Ph.D. thesis Israelology).

I agree about James/Jacob :thumb:, and that's one of many problems with the King Jimmy version. But the KJV was not the first printed Bible, or even the first printed English Bible. The KJV was first published in 1611 (with 8,422 marginal notes and the Apocrypha), and is vastly different from the 1769 revision by Blayney which most people are familiar with. The KJV-1611 was officially a revision of the 1568 Bishop’s Bible, itself a revision of the 1539 Great Bible, in turn a revision of the 1537 Matthew Bible, which was largely based on the 1526 Tyndale Bible. So the KJV was essentially the 5th revision of the Tyndale Bible, and retains about 90 % of its wording.

[bar Jonah]

Today @ 09:05 AM located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=43665#post43665)
Socrates:

About Stern, like another prominent Messianic Jew, Daniel Juster, he argued against the common translation of Romans 10:4 "For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified." Instead, Stern claimed it shoud be "goal of the law", because of legalism about the Jewish Law. But this translation is not supported by the KJV, RSV, NIV, NASB, Young's Literal, Darby or Weymouth. And the lexicons give the primary meaning of telos as "end", while "goal" is actually a quaternary meaning. The lexicons of Thayer and Arndt/Gingrich give Romans 10:4 as an example of this usage! Fruchtenbaum, who's just as Jewish as Stern, pointed this out in a response to Juster (see Frucht's Ph.D. thesis Israelology).

I agree about James/Jacob :thumb:, and that's one of many problems with the King Jimmy version. But the KJV was not the first printed Bible, or even the first printed English Bible. The KJV was first published in 1611 (with 8,422 marginal notes and the Apocrypha), and is vastly different from the 1769 revision by Blayney which most people are familiar with. The KJV-1611 was officially a revision of the 1568 Bishop’s Bible, itself a revision of the 1539 Great Bible, in turn a revision of the 1537 Matthew Bible, which was largely based on the 1526 Tyndale Bible. So the KJV was essentially the 5th revision of the Tyndale Bible, and retains about 90 % of its wording.
Thank you for the correction, Socrates. I misspoke myself. I seem to have done that two or three times in the past week. Sheesh. Sorry, haven't been myself lately. I know it wasn't the first Bible. I was momentarily lazy in what I chose to type.

Actually, your commentary on the revisionist nature of the 1611 Bible is a point my ministry tries to make in our apologetics class when we cover infallibility and inerrance (or errancy, as the case may be). We usually comment on the KJV-only issue. We ask... Which KJV? It was a revision of a revision of a revision of a revision. Just how perfect is this thing? Especially when you note that it talks about things like unicorns running around in the Old Testament. :huh:


King Jimmy version
:rofl:


Today @ 09:05 AM located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=43665#post43665)
Socrates:

About Stern, like another prominent Messianic Jew, Daniel Juster, he argued against the common translation of Romans 10:4 "For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified." Instead, Stern claimed it shoud be "goal of the law", because of legalism about the Jewish Law. But this translation is not supported by the KJV, RSV, NIV, NASB, Young's Literal, Darby or Weymouth. And the lexicons give the primary meaning of telos as "end", while "goal" is actually a quaternary meaning. The lexicons of Thayer and Arndt/Gingrich give Romans 10:4 as an example of this usage! Fruchtenbaum, who's just as Jewish as Stern, pointed this out in a response to Juster (see Frucht's Ph.D. thesis Israelology).
I agree, the translation of this verse is off. However, no translation is perfect, and this version of that verse isn't incorrect. While it isn't an entirely accurate translation, what it states is still true -- the Torah did point toward the goal of the Messiah. Wouldn't you agree?

[Socrates]

Yes to the last. I just don't think Romans 10:4 is talking about that.

[bar Jonah]

I agree. And while this isn't an excuse, no translation is perfect. Your example doesn't seem much more egregious than the NIV's problematic texts.

[Conductor42]

03-24-2003 @ 04:50 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=43404#post43404)
Socrates:

Agreed. People are now free to observe Jewish laws if they want (apart from ones like sacrificing for sin which have been superseded by the Messiah's sacrifice). They are also free not to observe them. A Jew should not have to eat pork to show that he believes in Y'shua, but nor should he look down on Jewish Christians who eat pork. Same with Saturday or Sunday observance.

I guess you haven't read Ezekiel, which clearly states that sin sacrifices will be reinstated?

[Socrates]

Don't patronize me -- I HAVE read Ezekiel, and these refer to future Memorial sacrifices, done to commemorate what the Messia has done for us.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Guys, non-debate area. Thanks.

[TedO]

I do think the Sabbath principle matters - that God has created man with a built-in need for 6 days and a rest. This should be viewed as a gift from God, not an obligation. Sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath.

Because the tradition of the early church was to meet on Sunday, it makes sense to continue this day, although no day is really any different than any other.

RightIdea - I would like a copy of the Christmas story with the Hebrew names if you can find it.