An Account of My 2015 Email Debate with Two Jewish Apologists, Jared and May – Part 4 on Simply Quoting Torah (Scripture)

Jared April 13, to me, May
There’s the thing – I actually didn’t put forward any arguments. I actually just quoted you Torah. We still keep and honour Torah – we (Jews and Noahide) simply try our best to keep the commandments and follow the law. I don’t believe there are things to argue about anything I just said unless you simply believe the Torah is a myth and holds no credibility. If that were the case there would be things to argue.

As for the Holocaust – this was a crime by humanity. The crimes against Christians right now by ISIS are a crime by humanity. The attacks on September 11 were a crime by humanity. I believe these examples are people failing and not g-d failing. I would suggest when Rabbi Tovia talks about being preserved he speaks of our place in the world to come at the end of days – although I would need to ask him for certainty.

Tragedies and terrible heart breaking things occur every day. We can’t claim to know what G-ds reasons are but we can only follow his law and try be as close to him as possible by performing mitzvot and living the way he intends us to live.

Perhaps we are not all set out for long lives in this life – but we believe the soul never dies. The body just borrows the soul for a period of a lifetime however long that is. I believe all of those souls who lost their physical life in the holocaust still face Hashem and still have their place in the world to come.

As for people having different beliefs – I don’t for one second they will be punished – particularly if they haven’t been schooled in Torah or if they’ve grown up with false doctrines. For many it’s not their fault – it’s simply what they’ve been taught. If they live a life committing good acts I believe they will be rewarded by G-d.

If we are going to see the end of days come to fruition however – and get to a place where the temple can be rebuilt and have peace on earth and everyone believing in the one g-d then we as Jews need to continue trying to be the light unto nations that G-d asked us to be , by keeping Torah and performing good deeds. At that point as it says in the Torah

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, 21 and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the LORD and seek the LORD Almighty. I myself am going.’22 And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the LORD Almighty and to entreat him.”
23 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’”

Randall Johnson April 14, to Jared, May
Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)

Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. (Genesis 19:24)

The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
11 The angel of the LORD also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the LORD has heard of your misery.
12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:7-13)

But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” (Genesis 22:11-18)

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:1-6)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26,27)

Jared April 14, to me, May
Do you have any views attached to the passages you included?

 

Randall Johnson April 14, to Jared
I’m being a bit facetious, but all I need to do is quote the Torah, right? And here in these passages we have multiple Yahwehs and the angel of Yahweh identified with Yahweh and we have what seems a contradiction of your view that the way of salvation is through being relatively good.

Jared April 14, to me, May
I don’t see the contraction. I also don’t see multiple or different G-ds in those passages – I see one G-d. The same G-d being referenced in the following passages. I’m interested in knowing – what do you think these passages mean? Or do you think they were made up ? I’m genuinely interested

1) “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, and of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:2-3)
2) “God is not a man that He should lie, nor a mortal that He should change His mind.”(Numbers 23:19)
3) You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no image; there was only a voice.” (Deuteronomy 4:11-12)
4) “You are the ones who have been shown, so that you will know that God is the Supreme Being, and there is none other besides Him!” (Deuteronomy 4:35)
5) “Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other (Deuteronomy 4:39)
6) “You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you!” (Deuteronomy 6:14)
7) “The Eternal One of Israel will not lie nor change His mind: for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” (1 Samuel 15:29)
8) “So that all the nations of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other!” (1 Kings 8:60)
9) “I am the Lord, that is My name, and My glory will I not give to another. Neither My praise to graven images!” (Isaiah 42:8)
10) “And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I am the Lord your God, there is no other; and My people shall never be ashamed.” (Joel 2:27)

Judaism draws man’s eyes toward Heaven – the God of Israel. We are inspired by the saintly lives of great men like Abraham and Daniel, but the notion of worshiping them would not cross our minds. We worship the God for whom they were willing to die.

As far as Salvation goes …I’m assuming you are referring to your belief that salvation comes through human sacrifice in the form of Jesus? Jewish people were strictly prohibited from offering human sacrifices under any circumstances. There is not one place throughout the entire corpus of the Jewish Scriptures where human sacrifices are condoned. In fact, over and over again, the Bible warns the Jewish people that it is a grave sin to bring a human being as a sacrifice. In the Book of Leviticus, only distinct species of animals are permitted for use in blood sacrifices.

This message was conveyed at Mt. Moriah, where Abraham prepared to offer up his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice. At that epic moment in history, as Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac, the Almighty admonished him that He did not desire human sacrifice, and directed Abraham to sacrifice the ram caught in the thicket instead. The Almighty’s directive – He only wanted animal sacrifices rather than human sacrifices – was immediately understood. This teaching has never departed from the mind and soul of the children of Israel.
Furthermore, the prophet Ezekiel warned the Jewish nation that a righteous man could not atone for the wins of the wicked. Wouldn’t we consider a father cruel if he punished an obedient child for the misdeeds of another? Only an unjust society would pardon its criminals while imprisoning the innocent. The prophet therefore warns that no innocent person can die for the sins of the wicked!
The soul that sins, it shall die! The son shall not bear for the sin of the father, nor the father bear for the sin of the son. The righteousness of the righteous person shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked person shall be upon him. 21As for the wicked man, if he should turn away from all his sins which he did, and safeguard all My decrees, and do justice and righteousness; he shall surely live. He will not die. 22All his transgressions which he committed will not be remembered against him. For the righteousness which he did, he shall live. 23Do I desire at all the death of the wicked man — the words of my Lord, God — is it not rather his return from his ways, that he might live? (Ezekiel 18:20-23)

Randall, I suspect you will want to use Leviticus 17:11 to bolster their claim that blood sacrifices are indispensable for procuring an atonement. Please note you must use all of the verse, not just a part of it. Leviticus 17:11 specifically says that the blood of the sacrifice must be placed “upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.” That is to say, Leviticus 17:11 explicitly declares that blood can only effect atonement if it is placed on the altar. Jesus’ blood, however, was never placed on the altar. If you are going to take the “blood” part of the verse literally, you must also take the “altar” part literally as well. Jesus’ blood was never sprinkled on the altar, and therefore his death could not provide atonement for anyone.

Finally, the prophets loudly declared to the Jewish people that the contrite prayer of the penitent sinner replaces the sacrificial system. Therefore, atonement for unintentional sins today is expiated through devotional supplication to God, the Merciful One.
In fact, in the third chapter of Hosea, the prophet foretold with divine exactness that the nation of Israel would not have a sacrificial system during the last segment of Jewish history until the messianic age. Hosea declares,…
“for the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.” (Hosea 3:4-5)

The prophets never instruct the Jews to worship any crucified messiah or demigod; nor does Scripture suggest that an innocent man could die as an atonement for the sins of the wicked. Such a message is utterly antithetical to the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. Rather, it is the prayers of the sinner that would become as bulls of the sin offerings.
King Solomon echoes this sentiment as well. In I Kings 8:46-50, King Solomon delivers a startling prophetic message as he inaugurates the newly constructed first Temple. In his inauguration sermon, King Solomon forewarns that one day the Jewish people would be driven out of the land of Israel, and banished to the land of their enemies, near and far. During their exile, many would fervently desire to repent of their sins. King Solomon then declares that they are to face Jerusalem from their diaspora, confess their sins, “and God will hear their prayers in heaven, and forgive them for all their transgressions.”

If they sin against You, for there is no man who does not sin, and You will be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, and their captors will carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far or near. And they shall bethink themselves 47in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captors, saying,‘We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness.’ 48And they shall return to You with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, who led them away captive, and pray to You toward their land, which You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name. 49And You shall hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, in Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause. 50And forgive Your people for what they have sinned against You, and all their transgressions that they have transgressed against You…

There was no mention of a cross or a dead messiah in King Solomon’s prophetic message. Only the contrite and repentant prayer of the remorseful sinner can bring about a complete atonement. Although King Solomon’s timeless message stands out as a theological impossibility in Christian terms, it remains the warm, centerpiece of the God’s system of atonement throughout his long and bitter exile.

I hope this clarifies your question and that you can answer my question above

 

Randall Johnson April 16, to Jared, May
In Genesis 19:24, Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.

In Genesis 18 it says the Lord appeared to Abraham while he was sitting at his tent. It says Abraham saw three men (and here I would say we don’t just need to quote the Torah because then God is a man according to Torah here, but we know He merely appeared as a man) and offered them hospitality. One of the three men tells Abraham that his wife Sarah will have a child a year from then. When they get up to leave one of them, the Lord, says to the other two, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” and proceeds to tell Abraham that He is going down to see if what Sodom and Gomorrah have done is as bad as He has heard (and here, I don’t think simply quoting Torah is sufficient or else we must believe that God needs to investigate in order to know something for sure, rather than that He is omniscient). The two men with the Lord leave for Sodom but the Lord stays to interact with Abraham as he seeks to find out how many righteous people need to be in those cities to prevent their destruction from the hand of God. When Abraham determines that it is 10 righteous people that can prevent destruction, the Lord leaves and Abraham returns to his tent.

We learn that the two men who were with the Lord are angels who go to rescue Lot and his family from Sodom because there are not 10 righteous people there and the city is going to be destroyed. When the family is safely away the Lord, who had spoken with Abraham and had come down to see if things were as bad as He had heard, rains down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. The Lord on the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah calls down fire from the Lord in heaven.

Now we know that the Lord is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Hebrew word for “one” in this passage is echad. Though it seems likely to me that the preferable translation of this passage is, “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone,” if the right translation is, “The Lord is one,” what does that mean? Does it mean a singular personality? The same word is used in Genesis 2:24 of Adam and Eve being one flesh, and yet within that one flesh there are two personalities. And this, of course, is what the trinitarian perspective is saying. There is only ONE God, but three personalities share that same one and undivided essence of deity. This is why God says, “Let US make man in OUR image.” He is not speaking to the angels but to the Son and to the Spirit. It is their image that humans are made in.

So when the Lord who appears to Abraham goes down to the plains of Sodom to determine the extent of their depravity, this is likely the Son, who then rains down fire from the Lord, the Father, from heaven. Both may rightly bear the divine name. And it still remains true that God does not share His glory with another. The three persons make up the one God. They are absolutely unified in all they do, yet distinct in their personalities and able, thus, to interact, to carry out different functions, and, because there is a hierarchy within the Godhead, the Father being the supreme authority, the Son and the Spirit obey Him, praise Him and pray to Him. Authority over someone does of necessity entail superiority. In this case, each person is absolutely equal in attributes.

The passages which mention the angel or messenger of the Lord and then identify Him with the Lord fit into the same paradigm. The Son, most likely, is sent with a message by the Father to Moses, appears to Moses in the bush, and though distinct from the Father is nonetheless the bearer of the divine name and speaks as the divine one. The three divine personages that make up the one God can speak for the whole.

And when God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, of course he is going to stop him because there is no merit to his son’s death as a sacrifice. The real issue is Abraham’s willingness to give up what might be for him his only hope of progeny as numerous as the sand. God (the angel of the Lord) provides a substitute. And of course God prohibits human sacrifice because there is no merit in a human to be sacrificed for others because it does not really appease the true God from His wrath. This is a lie from Satan. But God Himself, the Son, that is, taking on human nature in addition to His divine nature, can appease the wrath of God because His sacrifice has infinite value. Animals cannot really take away my sin. Though they are blemish free they do not really equal me in value but are rather pictures of the ultimate sacrifice that must be made. God’s willingness to enter into suffering and death is part of the ultimate answer to the problem of evil. God Himself is not exempt from suffering and indeed suffers unjustly because He has done no wrong.

Jesus did not offer his blood on the ark of the covenant in the earthly temple in Jerusalem. But when Moses was instructed to build the tabernacle he was shown the heavenly tabernacle as the pattern. This is where Jesus’ sacrificial blood made atonement. Jesus is the seed of the woman who bruises the head of the serpent and restores the kingdom to the human race by taking from us the curse of sin, its death penalty. All the promises of the New Covenant are being and will be fulfilled in Him.