False Prophet?

[1989]

In the Old Testament, the Jews are warned against false prophets who would be granted the power to perform miracles and stuff, but would ultimately be destroyed along with those who followed him.  How does a discerning Jew tell the difference between a false prophet and an ordained one?  The real deal will follow ALL of God's laws and commandments, and the false ones won't.

 

So Jesus performs miracles on the Sabbath and encourages others to do similar acts, and when he's called on it he starts in on the whole hypocrites thing.  He also had his followers "borrow" a donkey and a fowl so he could fulfill prophecy.  That's stealing, because I'm pretty sure no one was in any shape to give the animals back after the crucifixion and all the running and mourning.  Also, I'm pretty sure allowing Legion's demons to drown all those pigs wasn't kosher either.  No pun intended.  Also, by proclaiming that he was the only way to Heaven kind of goes against the whole Have No Other Gods Before Me thing, I'm sure.

 

So, is the Jesus the Bible presents a false prophet or am I reading too much into this?

[mymistake]

Basically that is it.  Notice that orthodox Jews are not rushing to become Christians?  The Christian message doesn't fit the Jewish scriptures but rather stands out as an opposition.  

[mwc]

     Are you saying there have been true prophets?  Because those would be needed in order to weed out the false ones.  I'm thinking they're all false.  People just seem to have their own preferred prophets regardless of any actual truth.

 

          mwc

 

[LogicalFallacy]

I have a problem with the swine story.

 

The Jews are not allowed to eat pigs - they are unclean. In archaeological ruins there are no pig bones which indicates they observed this. So what was a herd of swine doing in the area?

 

Was this a story trying to promote the idea pigs are unclean? Maybe, but still doesn't explain why they'd have a herd hanging about in the first place. Maybe someone knows an historical answer to this?

 

As to false prophets - according to Deuteronomy false prophets are to be killed from memory. Considering it was the prophets who wrote the rules I'm sure, like Christian apologists today, they were apt at coming up with reasons prophesies failed.

 

In fact you can read the bible and see exactly that. The prophesy against Tyre is a classic. King Neb is supposed to utterly lay waste to the city of Tyre - both the mainland and the Island. After many years he fails and only gets tribute. In the chapters after the prophesy this failure is explained away. As is David's kingdom being established forever. In bible studies they can see were people went back after the event and put subtle caveats into prophesies that read something like [prophesy].. "but if the people do xyz then ruin and destruction".

 

As far as true or false I agree with mwc, even though I'm not sure mwc even exists. But I agree with him.

[mwc]

2 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

I have a problem with the swine story.

 

The Jews are not allowed to eat pigs - they are unclean. In archaeological ruins there are no pig bones which indicates they observed this. So what was a herd of swine doing in the area?

 

Was this a story trying to promote the idea pigs are unclean? Maybe, but still doesn't explain why they'd have a herd hanging about in the first place. Maybe someone knows an historical answer to this?

     No one knows where this place was.  It seems made up.  People place it all over as a result.  Some put it right on the Sea of Galilee and others a bit further south (it still has to be reachable by boat since the narrative seems to imply that).  The whole point of moving it further south is to place it near the Decapolis which would mean Greeks (and other non-Jews) would live in this area and would be the ones raising swine.  They probably did up north too but the odds increase further into the Decapolis.

 

     It is probably just a metaphor.

 

2 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

As far as true or false I agree with mwc, even though I'm not sure mwc even exists. But I agree with him.

     I'm not entirely sure I exist.  I can see parts of myself but others I cannot.  I can't see the all-important eye parts with which I need to in order to do the seeing of things to know if they exist or not.  My world is in tatters.

 

          mwc

 

 

[florduh]

Technically, all prophets are false.

[LogicalFallacy]

1 hour ago, mwc said:

      I'm not entirely sure I exist.  I can see parts of myself but others I cannot.  I can't see the all-important eye parts with which I need to in order to do the seeing of things to know if they exist or not.  My world is in tatters.

 

          mwc

 

Gold my man, pure gold!

 

Since you cannot see the intricacies of the very organs you are supposed to see with where does that leave your argument against New Zealand existing because you haven't seen it?

[mwc]

7 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Gold my man, pure gold!

 

Since you cannot see the intricacies of the very organs you are supposed to see with where does that leave your argument against New Zealand existing because you haven't seen it?

     Don't taunt me!  I haven't sorted it all out but my eye orbs still know you aren't there.  I'm pretty sure if I cross my eyes hard enough I'll beat this thing.

 

          mwc

 

[RealityCheck]

Not all liars are prophets but all prophets are liars.

[LogicalFallacy]

15 minutes ago, mwc said:

     Don't taunt me!  I haven't sorted it all out but my eye orbs still know you aren't there.  I'm pretty sure if I cross my eyes hard enough I'll beat this thing.

 

          mwc

 

No taunt! It was a very serious question. It seems that there is an inherent problem with your ability to back up your argument that New Zealand doesn't exist because you haven't seen it if you cannot confirm the method by which you see can be seen.

 

Seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in reasoning and I'm at a loss as to why you cannot see this. And even if you could see the flaw how could you confirm you actually saw the flaw if you haven't seen your eyes which see?

 

I'm pretty sure they call that a slam dunk against your argument!

[mwc]

9 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

No taunt! It was a very serious question. It seems that there is an inherent problem with your ability to back up your argument that New Zealand doesn't exist because you haven't seen it if you cannot confirm the method by which you see can be seen.

 

Seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in reasoning and I'm at a loss as to why you cannot see this. And even if you could see the flaw how could you confirm you actually saw the flaw if you haven't seen your eyes which see?

 

I'm pretty sure they call that a slam dunk against your argument!

     I think it's just a calibration issue for very close-up objects.  As I said I'm working on it.  I can already see the end of my nose.  Yep, things are getting back on track.

 

          mwc

 

[LogicalFallacy]

45 minutes ago, mwc said:

     I think it's just a calibration issue for very close-up objects.  As I said I'm working on it.  I can already see the end of my nose.  Yep, things are getting back on track.

 

          mwc

 

Well no, its not a calibration issue. The issue is around the reliability of the method by which you confirm your observations. At this point you cannot say with confidence that what you observe you have actually seen.

[mwc]

52 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Well no, its not a calibration issue. The issue is around the reliability of the method by which you confirm your observations. At this point you cannot say with confidence that what you observe you have actually seen.

     Then I will not take your words with any level of confidence and continue to accept my reasoning instead.  For an imaginary friend, from an whimsical made up land, you can be very helpful in times of trouble.

 

          mwc

 

[1989]

14 hours ago, mwc said:

     Are you saying there have been true prophets?  Because those would be needed in order to weed out the false ones.  I'm thinking they're all false.  People just seem to have their own preferred prophets regardless of any actual truth.

 

          mwc

 

 

The Jews seemed to believe they were real.  They've got a book and everything.

 

13 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

As to false prophets - according to Deuteronomy false prophets are to be killed from memory. Considering it was the prophets who wrote the rules I'm sure, like Christian apologists today, they were apt at coming up with reasons prophesies failed.

 

I don't remember reading this.  Perhaps Messianic Jews are the reason they keep remembering.  They've got a book too.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

On 3/1/2018 at 5:22 AM, 1989 said:

In the Old Testament, the Jews are warned against false prophets who would be granted the power to perform miracles and stuff, but would ultimately be destroyed along with those who followed him.  How does a discerning Jew tell the difference between a false prophet and an ordained one?  The real deal will follow ALL of God's laws and commandments, and the false ones won't.

 

So Jesus performs miracles on the Sabbath and encourages others to do similar acts, and when he's called on it he starts in on the whole hypocrites thing.  He also had his followers "borrow" a donkey and a fowl so he could fulfill prophecy.  That's stealing, because I'm pretty sure no one was in any shape to give the animals back after the crucifixion and all the running and mourning.  Also, I'm pretty sure allowing Legion's demons to drown all those pigs wasn't kosher either.  No pun intended.  Also, by proclaiming that he was the only way to Heaven kind of goes against the whole Have No Other Gods Before Me thing, I'm sure.

 

So, is the Jesus the Bible presents a false prophet or am I reading too much into this?

 

I don't recall that particular warning in the OT, but there is in the NT particularly in The Revelation where someone is supposed to come with miraculous powers but be powered by The Devil™.

 

The stories about Jesus have him talk about damnation, which is not part of Judaism, so the leaders would have immediately called him out on that. Many of the other things they have him say about the hypocrisy of laws and loopholes may have been legitimate complaints that were common against religious leaders of the time. The stories of his encounters with the leaders and people where he starts weeding them out by saying "eat my flesh and drink my blood" show more about how they would probably have reacted to him generally.

 

That said, it is unlikely that any of these events actually happened. There were certainly always people that felt they were prophets, just like we have today. Churches generally kick them out, though they may still have followers. I knew of a handful of such people during my time in the Nazarene church back in the mid 1980s. One was a hippie guy with some Jesus-people hippie followers in Bozeman, MT, and another was an ex-Seventh Day Adventist pastor who claimed to be Jesus himself (Strong City cult). Others were just manipulative guys that could get women to follow their "deep" teachings and become the "bride of Christ" by having sex with them.

 

His guys borrowed a donkey for his grand entrance, but the crucifixion was still quite a ways off from his first entry into Jerusalem, though there is no story about them returning it. Not sure what you mean about a fowl.

 

About the pigs, the region was inhabited by other groups, not just Jews. Samaritans, Romans, Greeks, and probably others lived there, so having pigs in the countryside wasn't a big deal, just among the Jews.

[1989]

1 hour ago, Fuego said:

Not sure what you mean about a fowl.

 

I'm pretty sure I meant foal. 

[disillusioned]

MM has it. This is why Judaism is still a thing.