/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20543411]

The gospel of Matthew literally fabricates a quote to support Jesus' messiahood

Matthew 2:23
>And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

This isn't anywhere in the Old Testament or Apocrypha.

The usual Christian explanation is that it's a re-interpretation of Judges 13:5 or Isaiah 11:1 which use the words "Nazirite" and "shoot (netser) respectively, which both mean totally different things. If you deliberately change the meaning of a quote by altering the words, you're misrepresenting and being fraudulent.

After the fictional origin of this quote is shown, the usual reaction is to use stock 'get out of jail' Christian explanations which avoid addressing the specific problem, e.g. 'So what, I know Jesus was resurrected.' this Mere Christianity approach does away with all Christian orthodoxy and theology for the sake of avoiding hard questions. The significance of Jesus' resurrection and messiahood are dependent on prophecies, so it's pretty important to see if the prophecies hold up! In this case we have a fraud.

Another argument sometimes brought up in response is pre-suppositionalism which is a debate in itself, when brought up in response to a specific difficulty it's clearly being used to avoid the problem. In any case, it can be used to support any religion, so its usefulness is debatable.

There you have it: an author inventing a quote to support his narrative. Even if it's done in earnest with good intentions, it's false and deceptive.

[Anonymous No.20543432]

>>20543411
Maybe it was an oral tradition.

[Anonymous No.20543440]

The whole fulfilling the words of the prophets thing is so stupid anyway. The Christcuck argument is "wowie, look at that! The OT predicted this... so he must be the Messiah"
but Jesus intentionally does things so that might be the case.
like the bit in Matthew where Jesus says:
>Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me...that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass".
referencing a line from Zechariah
He's literally larping!

[Anonymous No.20543445]

>A quote that we can't a source for must be... LE INTENTIONAL LIE!

If you're already an atheist, you're going to be assuming that literally everything is just made up.

Why focus on this exact thing and quibble about it? This quibble isn't going to convince anyone of anything one way or the other, since interpreting it is going to be a matter of credulity, and what people think is going to be the most likely interpretation, given their trust for the source in the first place, and from the perspective of someone who already trusts everything else Matthew wrote, there's little reason to suspect it's a fabrication - intentional or otherwise.

Pic is an excerpt from Archbishop Averky of blessed memory's gospel commentaries

[Anonymous No.20543449]

Why would God have it that the NT would reference lost texts.

[Anonymous No.20543468]

probably you are just a jew

[Anonymous No.20543477]

>>20543468
Just like our Savior.

[Anonymous No.20543496]

christians unironically believe that god is an alien

[Anonymous No.20543519]

>>20543496
>christians unironically believe that god is an alien
no, the only ones who believe these things are the New Agers

[Anonymous No.20543549]

>>20543519
>god created the earth
>therefore god exists outside of the earth
>therefore god is an extraterrestrial

[Anonymous No.20543558]

>>20543549
>>therefore god exists outside of the earth
God is everywhere, He's not only outside of the earth
>Jeremiah 23:23-33 23 "I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. 24 No one can hide where I cannot see them. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth? 25 I know what those prophets have said who speak lies in my name and claim that I have given them my messages in their dreams.

[Anonymous No.20543562]

>>20543558
wow just like matter!

[Anonymous No.20543563]

>>20543477
Trump was jewish?

[Anonymous No.20543566]

>>20543563

[Anonymous No.20543583]

>>20543562
>matter is in heaven

[Anonymous No.20543596]

>>20543411
Two options:
1) it’s an oral tradition
2) it’s part of a book of prophecy that was lost to history
See? It’s not that hard.

Also, I could be wrong but I don’t believe that in ancient writing they used quotation marks. I don’t think they even used spaces between their words. So another option is that St. Matthew meant to say “the prophets say he will be a Nazarene”, and not, “the prophets say: ‘he will be a Nazarene’”. On this interpretation St. Matthew would just be presenting a general synthesis of what the prophets say, rather than an actual quotation. This is also plausible.

So there are many ways to reconcile this if you don’t come at it with bad faith.

[Anonymous No.20543637]

>>20543596
Maybe it’s linguistic or philological misinterpretation.
Even for given names, there is some variation even in English alone: Nebuchadnezzar -> Nabachodnozzer (or something like that), Esdras -> Ezra, Elijah -> Elias, Jesus -> Joshua, James -> Jacob.

[Anonymous No.20543653]

>>20543411
>an author inventing a quote

If Matthew intended to cite an exact prophetic quotation from the Old Testament, he would have cited a specific prophet, instead of saying summarily, as he does, “the prophets” (Matt. 2:23). In this treatment of prophecy Matthew displays a characteristically Hebraic approach to interpreting prophecy, much like Paul, the author of Hebrews, and the authors of the Dead Sea scrolls. Thus,

>Matthew makes a wordplay between "Nazareth" (natsaret) and "netser" in order to equate Jesus the "Nazarene" with Isaiah's messianic "branch."
>Far from being biblically ignorant or willfully deceptive, Matthew refers to Jesus as a “Nazarene” in order to make a Greek allusion to a Hebrew word found in the Prophets. Specifically, Isaiah speaks of a royal figure emerging from David’s line: “A shoot will grow up from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him” (Isa 11:1-2). The word that Isaiah uses for “branch” is נצר (netser) – an agricultural metaphor that, by Matthew’s day, was understood as a reference to the coming Messiah (cf. Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q161; 4Q285).
>The words “Nazareth” and “Nazarene” are related phonetically – that is, they have a similar sound – to Isaiah’s term for “branch” (נצר; netser). In the Greek of the First Gospel, “Nazareth” (Ναζαρέτ) is pronounced Natsaret. Matthew makes a wordplay between “Nazareth” (natsaret) and “netser” in order to equate Jesus the “Nazarene” with Isaiah’s messianic “branch.” By living in Nazareth, Jesus spends his formative years in what we might call the “Netserhood,” or “Branchville”! Thus, while the phrase “he shall be called a Nazarene” does not appear explicitly in Israel’s Scriptures, Matthew refers to Jesus’ hometown in order to make an ingeniously inter-linguistic connection between his Messiah and the “branch” of Isaiah’s prophecy.
https://weekly.israelbiblecenter.com/he-will-be-called-a-nazarene/

[Anonymous No.20543659]

I hate Christian larpers so much.

[Anonymous No.20543759]

>>20543411
>Another low-quality thread about mystical trash
>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.20543776]

>>20543411
>it's false and deceptive.
You are a hypocrite

[Anonymous No.20543973]

>>20543445
I already addressed this objection in the first post "it's just a quibble who cares", as I pointed out this is a straightforward falsification of a prophecy. This doesn't imply malicious intent, Matthew probably saw it as a legitimate way to interpret, but as I said, that technique is just reading whatever you want into a text.

It's also another 'get out of jail' technique to claim a criticism is in bad faith, without actually addressing why. Someone pointing out a problem isn't automatically bad just because it's the Bible

>>20543596
That's a proposal of a totally unattested and lost non-Biblical tradition. Just proposing something doesn't make it a solution. Even granting you're right, why was such an important work of prophecy lost? In any case, it looks like one of the actual verses which I mentioned but altered to say something else that fit Jesus. Your proposal of a general synthesis doesn't make any sense, how could you synthesise what the prophets said to get something as specific as saying the Messiah would be a Nazarene, which none of them mention?

>>20543653
The Isaiah 11:1 proposal is addressed in the first post. It's changing the wording to force a text to 'predict' Jesus. If you can change the wording of a text and take a snippet out of context, you can make it say whatever you want, misrepresenting the text in the process because you've literally altered it. Paul, the Qumran community, and the rabbis did it too, does that somehow make it correct?

[Anonymous No.20544035]

>>20543973
Bro, it’s really not that deep. You’re thinking like a Protestant who believes God’s word is only that which is written down and preserved. God could have had innumerable prophets throughout history in various nations who’s words were not written down or, if written down, then lost to history. Sounds like you’re reading the Bible with a grudge trying to disprove it. If that’s the case then why read it at all?

[Anonymous No.20544039]

>>20543449
So that we moderns can understand that people in the past knew things we don't.

[Anonymous No.20544043]

>>20544035
Ok but can anything good come out of Nazareth?

[Anonymous No.20544049]

>>20543411
Imagine believing in religion post-Neitzshe. Grow up and learn science.

[Anonymous No.20544054]

>>20544043
That quote always made me laugh. Nazareth must have been a crappy area lol. And yet produced the greatest human being ever to live.

[Anonymous No.20544070]

>>20544035
The problem isn't that it's not 'deep' it's that there's no evidence for your proposal. Any number of things *could* be behind Matthew's quote, but the one we have evidence for is that he twisted the meaning of an actual verse because of the textual similarities, plus the fact that the same technique was used by the Qumran community.

[Anonymous No.20544081]

>>20544070
You just keep asserting that your bad-willed interpretation is the correct one. There are other alternatives, which I’ve listed. There is no epistemic priority for your interpretation, so it does not damage my belief in the inspiration of Holy Scripture.

[Anonymous No.20544084]

>>20543973
>Paul, the Qumran community, and the rabbis did it too, does that somehow make it correct?

Quite so. Do you not see that you're imposing an anachronistic standard for interpreting Hebrew prophecy -- or are you right and the Hebrews were wrong?

[Anonymous No.20544094]

>>20544081
That doesn't address my point. There is evidence for what I stated about Judges 13:5 or Isaiah 11:1 being used, they're proposed and accepted by many scholars as the origin of Matthew's quote. Your approach seems to be to pick the explanation that damages your faith the least, rather than the best-evidenced one.

[Anonymous No.20544102]

>>20544084
It's not anachronistic to point out a misquote, just because some ancient people did it doesn't make it beyond criticism. When an ancient author says the Sun revolves around the Earth, are we not allowed to say they were wrong?

[Anonymous No.20544120]

>>20544094
It’s speculation. We have no way of knowing the origin for the quote. Our interpretations are equally speculative. So yes, I choose the one which doesn’t damage my faith. That’s what you’re meant to do when you come across evidence which seems to be in tension with your overall theory. You integrate it into your theory, assuming there’s an intellectually honest way to do so. In this case there is.

[Anonymous No.20544134]

>>20544102
It's not a misquote, it's an intentional gloss, or epigrammatic exegesis. Thus, as noted previously, Matthew does not cite a specific prophet, but speaks rather of "the prophets."

[Anonymous No.20544205]

>>20543411
You’re quite cynical if you don’t think that it is either (1) a cryptic paraphrase, (2) a quote from a text that didn’t survive to our day in any other existing account, or (3) oral tradition (which also appears in the Gospels when Jesus mentions things such as the Seat of Moses)

[Anonymous No.20544233]

The whole thing is fabricated you idiot

[Anonymous No.20544255]

>>20544120
No... you check the evidence and if it holds up you adjust your theory.

>>20544134
Matthew frequently used generic attributions such as "the prophet" and "You have heard that it was said" when making direct quotes. Yes, we can call it an exegetical gloss, but the problem is with the technique itself. The Qumran community also read the Old Testament texts in that way and found prophecies that predicted their own community. When a technique produces contradictory results depending on who uses it, it's bunk

[Anonymous No.20544256]

>>20543411
Fuck you bitch!
Fuck you and your brood!
Jesus is King, Jesus is God!

When I had delirium tremens, demons surrounded me and they wanted to tear my soul and my mind to pieces so that I would turn into those crazy drunks who go crazy because of drunkenness.
Then he turned to his forefather Moses, whom I often saw in my dreams. Moses prayed to God, and then He came!
Jesus
I then thought that it was Samson or Jacob, but he was much more powerful than my ancestors.
He took my hand and together we beat these demons, fighting shoulder to shoulder.
Then this man patted my cheek like a son, and I saw where these monsters fell - they fell into a dark abyss, where they growled and screamed with fear and hatred.
I turned to Moses and asked - who was it? Maybe it's Samson?
But Moses (by the way, he was swarthy like an Egyptian, but he had long black hair and a beard with a mustache). Moses said:
- No, it was YOUR god. God is a man.

[Anonymous No.20544275]

>>20544255
There’s no reason to adjust my theory over your speculation when I can posit just as plausible an alternative which doesn’t damage my theory whatsoever. If you’re so hard-nosed about this why read the Bible at all? The questions you’re asking are so boring and surface level compared to the depth the Bible has to offer.

[Anonymous No.20544279]

>>20543411
It's an amazing feeling.
I myself am a kind person, and do no harm to anyone.
I can think evil, but I cannot do evil.
Once, in childhood, we saw the ghost of an old and evil woman, we called her the Queen of Spades.
We did a witchcraft rite to summon her, and she supposedly got scared of me.
Later, when I had terrible dreams or delirium tremens, I always called on Jesus, and the nightmares receded.
These were unreal nightmares, with ghouls and ghouls, with monsters and werewolves. And they all feared the name of Jesus.
They were all afraid of the sign of the Cross.
These monsters were simply carried away down to the underworld, and wept to Satan that they were shown the sign of the Cross.
I used to be a pagan, but then I realized in practice that Christianity is the true faith.

[Anonymous No.20544282]

Consider the following:
The Gospel of Matthew goes to great lengths to connect Jesus with the Messianic Prophecies. Taking the secular view, we can assume that they were written by learned men with extensive access to Jewish religious texts/teachings. The argument was made that they simply attributed things to Jesus in order to fit the prophecies in these texts. Indeed, great care is taken to highlight how closely Jesus resembles the prophesied Christ.

If these men, learned as they were and with access to this knowledge, were taking such care to fabricate messiahood, why would they turn around and include something that could be easily disproven through their Jewish texts? I have never heard this seemingly simple rebuttal in Jewish responses to the early Church. Given how easily people took that quote as Gospel (heh), I would think it more likely that the authors of Matthew are instead referring to a non-written source of tradition, such as a widely known oral tradition. It is only after removing the text from this historical context that people seem to have complaints.

If this is the case, whether secular or religious, there is still no dilemma. The Scripture remains the inerrant Word of God. I'm sorry if this doesn't satisfy you. Regardless of what I say to you or you say to me, God will remain as he always has. Seek, and you will find.

[Anonymous No.20544286]

>>20544282
Demons and goblins are afraid of Jesus, that says it all.
Jesus is King, Jesus is God.

[Anonymous No.20544300]

>>20544282
The witches had a cult of George the Victorious (Odin, Thor or Heimdall), who killed the Three-Headed Serpent Azhi-dahak (gnome, Ravana, Gorynych Serpent), saved the beautiful princess (Sita, Maria) and established peace.
The devil is always a defeated freak, his hordes and his sorcerers scatter.

[Anonymous No.20544325]

>>20544255
>When a technique produces contradictory results depending on who uses it, it's bunk

But it's not so much a technique, as such (it is quite anachronistic to so characterize it), but rather an interpretive practice rooted in a specific culture -- a culture that produced endless learned/intuitive commentaries on the Hebrew scriptures, and, in separate works, interpretive renderings of the same (i.e., the targums).

[Anonymous No.20544339]

>>20544282
Wait, your argument is:
>the writer of the Matthew could, in theory, have intentionally crammed the book full of OT references to make it seem, erroneously, that Jesus is the Messiah
>but one of the references arguably does not appear in what we have of the OT
>therefore the book is the work of God, the creator of all things
Seriously?
What's stranger to me as a non-believer is that the Gospel writer tell us that Jesus did things intentionally to fulfil a prophesy rather having them happen naturally. That alone to me is extremely odd.

[Anonymous No.20544421]

>>20544339
Yes, I do not need arguments, damn it.
I've seen devils, I've seen succubi.
My grandmother was a real real witch, and these witches did not worship the God of Israel, but St. George the Victorious, who killed the Dragon.
I often dreamed of these creatures, diabolical women - pale dead men who turned into male vampires.
I often woke up in a cold sweat at the sight of them.
And yes!
THEY ARE AFRAID OF THE WORD WHEN A MAN SAYS JESUS IS GOD!
Perhaps my lineage of sorcerers is cursed. But we have always been saved from nightmares by crying out to God-Jesus.
God-Jesus destroyed these jellyfish vampires, and then our time came. In my dream, I took some kind of stick and went to kill the octopus demon to death, and then I killed his henchman - a demon with four arms, and Jesus himself killed the busty devil.
Those were very bad dreams.
Without them, I would never have become a Christian.

[Anonymous No.20544440]

Have you ever seen real demons?
They are not horned, they are tailed, they look like black shadows.
They jump on you like predators to get your soul.
That's what all these Denons are!

[Anonymous No.20544456]

>>20544282
>why would they turn around and include something that could be easily disproven through their Jewish texts?
Because they weren't "learned", they were whacky cultists on the edge of society making shit up to justify whatever bizarre cause of the day they clung to. There's a reason all of the Church Fathers were not only of the opinion that they could just take a text and interpret it however the fuck they wanted, but also were constantly pulling "Secret" Gospels out of their asses.

[Anonymous No.20544583]

>>20544456
Just get drunk to delirium tremens and then try to call on Jesus.
If you are a good Christian, then you will see a flock of birds that drives away demons.
In any case, only a prayer to Jesus helps to drive away the night ghosts.
This proves that Christianity was right!

[Anonymous No.20544594]

Hell, even Buddhism is partly correct.
Before your ancestors go to THE OTHER SIDE, they come to you and protect you in the form of ghosts or insects.
Exotic spiders destroy bedbugs and ticks so that they do not disturb you. Your ancestors turn into scolopendra and devour snails and slugs, as well as mosquitoes.
All things give thanks to God and sing hymns to him, but you do not know this and turn into devils.

[Anonymous No.20544652]

>>20544421
>>20544440
You will never be a schizo.

[Anonymous No.20544667]

>>20543445
The funniest thing about atheists is that they believe nothing matters and yet devote their entire life to fighting against religion and God lives rent free in their head 24/7

[Anonymous No.20544755]

>>20544652
Go, you son of a bitch, get drunk, and then fuck in front of the ghosts of the night.
I say that only the Cross scares them to shit, and without the cross, YOU will shit themselves to the point of diarrhea.
You wanted to humiliate me, but I know WHAT YOU WILL BE humiliated, SUCH SCREAM, TIME YOU STARTED DENYING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JESUS.
Go fuck yourself and get scared, you stinky bitch.
Go fuck yourself and eat your shit, motherfucker child.
You don't even know shit about witchcraft, you stinky asshole.

[Anonymous No.20546183]

>>20544755
You’re absolutely right, my Christian friend, but you can go about it in a better manner. Insulting never persuades anyone.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but are you a woman?
There are writing styles which signify the writer.

[Anonymous No.20546187]

>>20543411
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS LITERATURE, YOU FUCKING RETARD?

[Anonymous No.20546230]

>>20546187
He’s quoting a book, friend.

[Anonymous No.20546359]

Micah 5:2

Now seethe, Jew.

[Anonymous No.20546396]

Matthew uses the word Nazarene in reference to a person who is “despised and rejected.” In the first century, Nazareth was a small town about 55 miles north of Jerusalem, and it had a negative reputation among the Jews. Galilee was generally looked down upon by Judeans, and Nazareth of Galilee was especially despised (see John 1:46). If this was Matthew’s emphasis, the prophecies Matthew had in mind could include these two passages concerning the Messiah:

“But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads” (Psalm 22:6–7). It’s true that Nazarenes were “scorned by everyone,” and so one could see this messianic prophecy as an allusion to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth.

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3). Again, in Jesus’ day, Nazarenes were “despised and rejected,” and so Isaiah’s prophecy could be viewed as an indirect reference to Jesus’ background as the supposed son of a carpenter from Nazareth.

If Psalm 22:6–7 and Isaiah 53:3 are the prophecies that Matthew had in mind, then the meaning of “He shall be called a Nazarene” is something akin to “He shall be despised and mocked by His own people.” Jesus not only identified with humanity by coming to our world; He also identified with the lowly of this world. His upbringing in an obscure and despised town served as an important part of His mission. Jesus identified Himself as “Jesus of Nazareth” during His encounter with Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 22:7–8). After his conversion, Paul mentioned Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 26:9). One of the names of the early Christians was “Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5), and the term Nasara, meaning “Nazarene,” is still used today by Muslims to identify a Christian.

[Anonymous No.20547858]

>>20546359
/thread

[Anonymous No.20547867]

>>20546187
>how is a book literature
When are these retarded trolls ever going to get banned for ruining some of the few threads that actually discuss literature?

[Anonymous No.20547872]

>>20543445
ya i dont get why my fellow desponders go for the smallest fish to fry
they are lighting matches and flicking them at paper bins while I want to force petrolium down thier pipe and kick them into the sun

[Anonymous No.20547887]

>>20547867
The Bible is literature. But not all books are. A less liberal understanding of the word would remove the majority of bad threads.

[Anonymous No.20548005]

>>20547887
90% of the threads on /lit/ don't even pretend to discuss literature or books implying there's a difference, stop being a janny apologist

[Anonymous No.20548046]

>>20544282
>indeed, great care is taken to highlight how closely Jesus resembles the prophesied Christ.
Like the part in which the messiah is not supposed to be resurrected, or die crucified? Or the part where he's supposed to unify the world, bring peace and so on, which jesus didn't do?

[Anonymous No.20548109]

>>20543519
My roommate does and he's Christian. Truth is stranger than fiction, pal.