Herzog_Zwei,
Ahhh, slowly showing your horns eh.this will be the moment I
will start ignore fools lest i be the fool.
All of you either idiots or damn sinister, bcos none you even
want to discuss so much evidence on messiahtruth.com which showed
many brilliant exposing of christianity downright contradiction
conveniently summarized for you in the first page. Not even one
comment?eh brudders, too obvious la.
Dont worry. I will start the ball rolling for those others who
have bothered about the bible accuracy good for you. cos I am very
sure www.messiahtruth.com is direct and cut to the chase...
I will start with a brilliant topic on jesus genealogy
"And not to occupy
themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote
speculations rather than the divine training that is known by
faith."
1 Timothy 1:4 (NRS)
Most Christians are not learned in Jewish law, and are thus
unaware of the triune (pardon the expression) nature of the
genealogical problem associated with claiming Jesus as the Messiah.
However, since the Christian claim is that Jesus is the JEWISH
Messiah, then we must put the case under JEWISH scrutiny, and see
if it fits under JEWISH law. The following is an examination of the
genealogy of the man whom Christians call Lord and Savior.
Messiah is an anglicized version of the Hebrew word "Moshiach,"
which means "anointed." We call the future king the Messiah because
all kings are anointed.
One of the simplest requirements for being the Messiah is the
lineage. In the Jewish scriptures we see prophecies of a king from
David's line sitting on the throne of Israel once more:
Jeremiah 30:7 Alas! for that day [is] great, so
that none [is] like it: it [is] even the time of Jacob's trouble;
but he shall be saved out of it. [8] For it shall come to pass in
that day, saith the LORD of hosts, [that] I will break his yoke
from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no
more serve themselves of him: [9] But they shall serve the LORD
their G-d, and David their king, whom I
will raise up unto them. (KJV)
David had been given an oath from the Almighty that the throne
of Israel would always belong to his line, which we find in the
Jewish Bible repeatedly:
Jeremiah 33:17 For thus said HASHEM:
There shall not be cut off from David a
man who sits on the throne of the House of Israel. [18] And
for the Kohanim, the Levites, there will never be cut off a man
from before Me who offers elevation-offerings and burns
meal-offerings and performs feast-offerings all the days. [19] The
word of HASHEM came to Jeremiah, saying: [20] Thus said HASHEM: If
you could annul My covenant with the day and My covenant with the
night, so that day and night would not come in their proper times,
[21] so too could My covenant be annulled with David, My servant,
so that he would not have a descendant reigning on his throne, or
[My covenant] with the Levites and the Kohanim, My attendants.
(Artscroll)
Psalms 89:34 My
covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone
out of my lips. [35] Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will
not lie unto David. [36] His seed shall
endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. [37]
It shall be established for ever as the moon, and [as] a faithful
witness in heaven. Selah. (KJV)
So, from here we see that G-d took an oath that the throne would
always belong to David and his descendants. However, the oath was
supplemented by another pledge:
1 Chronicles 22:9 Behold, a son shall be born
to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from
all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give
peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. [10] He shall build a
house for my name; and he shall be My son, and I [will be] his
Father; and I will establish the throne
of his kingdom over Israel for ever. (KJV)
So we see, any man who would sit on the throne must not only be
a descendant of King David, but specifically a descendant of
David’s son, Solomon. This requirement was made even more stringent
in the days prior to the Babylonian exile. Jeconiah, King of Judah,
was a wicked king, and his actions pushed G-d too far. G-d punished
Jeconiah, also known as Jehoiachin or Coniah:
Jeremiah 22:24 [As] I live, saith the LORD,
though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet
upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence; [25] And I will
give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the
hand [of them] whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of
Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
[26] And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into
another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die.
[27] But to the land whereunto they desire to return, thither shall
they not return. [28] [Is] this man Coniah a despised broken idol?
[is he] a vessel wherein [is] no pleasure? Wherefore are they cast
out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
[29] O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD. [30] Thus
saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man [that] shall not
prosper in his days: for no man of his
seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling
any more in Judah. (KJV)
This devastating curse effectively removes all descendants of
Jeconiah from the royal line. So from the verses listed above we
see that anyone who would sit as king must be descended from King
Solomon but not descended from King Jeconiah. We see that this
curse is binding, because after Jeconiah was deposed, instead of
the throne being handed to his son, it passed to Zedekiah, his
uncle. No descendant of Jeconiah ever held the throne, or ever can
hold the throne. His grandson, Zerubbabel, held power granted by
G-d, but was never king.
The New Testament makes the messianic claim for Jesus, and as
such, the New Testament gives a detailed genealogy in the first
chapter of the very first book, the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus
Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. [2] Abraham begat
Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his
brethren; [3] And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares
begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; [4] And Aram begat Aminadab; and
Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; [5] And Salmon
begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat
Jesse; [6] And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat
Solomon of her [that had been the wife] of Urias; [7] And Solomon
begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; [8] And
Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat
Ozias; [9] And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and
Achaz begat Ezekias; [10] And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses
begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias; [11] And Josias begat
Jechonias and
his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:
(KJV)
Matthew defeated his own purpose by including Jeconiah (spelled
Jechonias by the KJV) in his listing. Further complicating this
matter is the virgin birth, which is claimed by Matthew 1:18-23.
Because the virgin birth is substantiated by a misused excerpt of
Isaiah (see related essay) there is
no reason to believe that it was actually prophesied, and even less
to believe it to be true. Furthermore, it defeats the claim that
Jesus is the Messiah. In Jewish law, genealogy is traced
specifically through the father, not the mother.
Numbers 1:2 Take ye the sum of all the
congregation of the children of Israel, after their families,
by the house of their fathers,
with the number of [their] names, every male by their polls;
(KJV)
Numbers 1:18 And they assembled all the
congregation together on the first [day] of the second month, and
they declared their pedigrees after their families, by the house of their fathers, according to
the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, by their
polls. (KJV)
With genealogies in the Bible, we see person A, son of person B,
son of person C, etc. This is because Jewish descent is traced
through our fathers. If a Levitical priest married a woman from the
tribe of Judah, their children would be of the tribe of Levi.
Not having a human father prevents anyone from claiming the
throne.
Different Christians have shown a great deal of savvy in trying
to deflect attention away from the two gaping problems listed
above. None of their solutions, however, hold water. Here are some
samples:
1) The virgin birth prevents Joseph from
passing on his cursed lineage to Jesus, thereby allowing Jesus to
sit on the throne. This is the answer proposed by apologists like
Josh McDowell. Because the virgin birth undermines the notion of
Jesus being the Messiah, one is forced to consider
this as if Joseph passed on the genealogy through rights of
adoption, even though such rights do not exist.
2) The claim is made that the curse was not to be
taken literally. The beginning of Jeremiah 22:30 reads "Write ye
this man childless, a man [that] shall not prosper in his days..."
From this they point to the fact that Jeconiah did know prosperity,
and that he did indeed have children, so that means G-d didn’t mean
the curse to be as devastating as it actually is. This is pointing
away from the end of verse 30. "For no man of his seed shall
prosper, sitting upon the throne of
David, and ruling any more in Judah." This portion of the
verse makes it clear what was meant. Jeconiah did indeed have
children, but those children would be forbidden from sitting on the
throne. "Write ye this man childless" is simply a metaphor
here.
3) The claim is made that the curse was annulled
by G-d. Christians refer to the following passage:
Haggai 2:23 In that day, saith the LORD of
hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of
Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I
have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts. (KJV)
G-d used the same term with Zerubbabel, a descendant of
Jeconiah, that He used with Jeconiah, a "signet ring." Christians
conclude from this that the curse was annulled. However, a closer
examination will reveal that this is certainly not the case. The
curse begins with an oath. "As I live, saith the LORD." How does
the Lord live? He lives eternally. G-d did indeed show favor to
Zerubbabel, and might even have instated Zerubbabel as king, if
not for the curse the Almighty placed on Jeconiah. The
Almighty took oaths. Are we to believe that the Almighty would
revoke His oaths? The problem with this is twofold.
a. If the virgin birth is true (which is less likely than I can
adequately describe, given that a mistranslated prophecy was taken
out of context to "prove" it) that would mean that G-d took the
throne away from David’s house, which would mean G-d violated an
oath.
b. The curse of Jeconiah taints Joseph’s line, so that if you
theorize adoption (which is without scriptural backing or
precedent) you trace Joseph back to Jeconiah, cursed by G-d under
another of G-d’s oaths.
4) Another Christian proposed a solution to
this problem along the lines of "Don’t you think G-d would have it
in His heart to show mercy to Jeconiah’s line?" My answer is
two-fold: a) NO, it was a curse, and we see that it was eternal by
the fact that none of Jeconiah’s descendants sat on the throne. b)
If you theorize that G-d showed mercy provide your evidence within
the text. The needs of Christian
theology predicate this solution, rather than the
facts.
5) Christians believe they have found the answer
to this problem with the following: In chapter three of the Gospel
of Luke, we see a genealogy of Jesus which lacks Jeconiah in the
listing. Strangely enough, this genealogy is attributed to Joseph
as well. Apologists have asserted that this is the genealogy of
Mary. They claim that it is through Mary’s line that Jesus is
linked to David, and thus the virgin birth problem and the Jeconiah
problem are solved, right?
Wrong. Let us explain why this is not a viable solution:
1) The genealogy in Luke’s Gospel specifically says Joseph, not
Mary.
2) The genealogy of Mary is completely irrelevant, as lineage is
through the father, not the mother.
3) Luke made a critical gaff in his genealogical listing. The
listing doesn’t include King Solomon:
Luke 3:31 Which was [the son] of Melea, which
was [the son] of Menan, which was [the son] of Mattatha, which was
[the son] of Nathan,
which was [the son] of David, (KJV)
Luke’s listing proclaims Jesus the descendant of Nathan, not
Solomon, making Luke’s genealogy a disqualifying factor as well.
(See 1 Chronicles 22 excerpt above) BOTH genealogies we find in the
New Testament Jesus from being the Messiah.
1 Timothy 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies,
which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which
is in faith: [so do]. (KJV)
Why is this verse here, if not to get people to point away from
the fairly obvious problems the gospels contain?
1) If the virgin birth is true (which is highly unlikely since
it goes against the grain of supporting Jesus’ messianic claim)
then Jesus cannot be the Messiah.
2) If you trace Jesus' line through Joseph (by which you claim
Jesus inherits the throne by adoption) in Matthew's genealogy, then
you run into the curse of Jeconiah, and Jesus cannot be the
Messiah.
3) If you trace Jesus’ line through Luke's genealogy (regardless of
whether you attribute it to Joseph or Mary) Jesus cannot be the
Messiah because it doesn't include King Solomon; it includes his
brother, Nathan, eliminating any legitimate claim to the
throne.
Jesus' genealogy, as we have it in
the Christian Scriptures, does not allow him to be the Messiah.
This point cannot be stressed strongly enough. No
other "prophecies" one thinks Jesus fulfilled are relevant without
this crucial brick in the wall.
