Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 2:14 pm
I can start with what is declared in the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word. What I take from this, but moreover from “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” is an expression of a Universal truth.
Wait: what do we mean by "universal truth"? For that expression is ambiguous.
It could mean either a) a truth which, once it happens, is thereafter true everywhere, at all times, and regardless of persons -- a "universal fact," if you will; or b) that all people automatically (as per the theology called "Universalism") are automatically "chidren of God."
We need to realize that John 1 rules out the second implication. We can tell that rather easily, by things like the phrase,
"to all who did receive Him," and
"His own did not recieve Him." This divides the world into two classes, clearly: those who heard the universal truth of what God has done and responded in faith, and those for whom the same truth was true but who did not receive it at all.
Previously, I placed this truth within a far larger context: the manifest Universe. That is to say not just our world but all worlds that exist. So what I am forced to say, and what I am forced to believe (to put it in these colloquial terms) is that whatever is being spoken of is transcendent to the specific example or instance in which, here, it is expressed.
I'm not at all sure why you say you are "forced to believe" any such thing, actually. It does not seem evident to me that there are "other worlds that exist"; but if they do, we manifestly know nothing about them, and so cannot possibly take this statement as a proposition about things we cannot and do not know to exist.
In contrast, to take this as referring to the specific conditions on the only "world" the Bible ever speaks about seems very natural. So far from being "forceful" in compelling the reading you suggest, it seems rather clear that the entire burden of proof would be on anybody who believes it, and that nothing in the context of Scripture or in current science itself will enable such a reading to meet that burden.
I would assume, a transcendental metaphysics of which the Christian revelation, and indeed the Judaic or Hebrew revelation, is just a part.
I have no idea why you would feel obligated to assume that. As I said, I think the total lack of both Scriptural and empirical evidence for it would speak powerfully
against any such assumption. But if means exist to justify that assumption, I'm interested in hearing you lay them out.
So there is another problem that immediately comes to the surface and it too is not small. The message in John is transcendent to the Hebrew revelation.
That's debatable. Modern Judaism says that the message of John is not "transcendent" at all, but rather an unwarranted extrapolation on Old Testament text, especially since it identifies Jesus as Messiah. The original Christians, who were all Jews, saw it as an absolute continuation and fulfillment of the Davidic promises, and Jesus as definitely the Messiah.
So neither actually held that the thing "transcended" the Hebrew revelation: rather it either was, or was not, the rightful extension and exposition of it.
I do not think that either Hebrew or Christian could ever or did ever succeed in, shall I say, initiating or finalizing (?) the divorce.
Well, in a sense, that's quite right. For Jews, there's no "divorce" because, in their view, there was no "marriage." In Christian thought (outside of the pernicious field of what's called "Supersessionism" or "Replacement Theology," and within actual Biblical doctrine) there was never any chance of "divorcing" Christianity from its role as
fulfillment of Hebrew revelations.
So again, no "divorce" is attempted at all, on either side.
...2) Christianity is in my view in a profound state of dramatic confusion and the larger part of Christians are today Christian Zionists.
Actually, the larger part of nominal "Christendom" is persuaded of some form of Supersessionism. But real Christians, if they have their doctrine straight at all, do not either sever Christian revelation from its Hebrew roots nor gratuitously treat the current State of Israel as a Christian state. Rather, they recognize israel as currently in rebellion against Messiah, but ultimately also the place of Messiah's triumph and rule. They anticipate not the inevitable triumph of secular Israel, nor the annihilation of Israel by its enemies, but the rescue of the obedient element in Israel by Messiah. So for them, as for me, Israel is neither inerrant now nor dispensible anytime.
Is that "Zionism"? Not really. I think the term "Zionism" is ordinarily used for some sort of aspiration that present Israel, secular Israel, has an inexorable triumphant trajectory of it's own, on that has to do with what you call "terrestrial power games." And I don't think any knowledgeable Christian believes that. Certainly, they shouldn't.
Absent Messiah, there is no redemption for Israel...or for anyone else. That's solid Christian theology.
This leads — in my case, and my case is personal, but the larger issue here is not personal — to a group of different problems. But the first order of business, in my view, is to separate the Christian revelation in its specificity from the metaphysical principles that it expresses. To say *metaphysical principles* is a way of restating what is said in John. That is to say metaphysical facts or *realities* that transcend the specificity of the revelation and apply universally, to all possible worlds.
Again, I think this project of imagining a set of "metpahysical principles" beyond the specifics of Scripture (even if one tries to derive them from thence) is a vain one. The great weight of evidence is that John's words are meant specifically for THIS world, and for us in specific, not for some imaginary world of which we have no knowledge and for which we have no evidence.
It is necessary to say that God does not speak with a Yiddish accent.
That would be to mistake the order. It is not that God ever speaks with a human accent, but rather that Hebrews and Christians are trying to speak with a divine one.
Surely we must not reverse the priority of the Original and the mere copy.
I am interested in this statement: “Christians and Jews have long recognized just that fact. And it accounts for the proliferation of myths and stories around the world...lots of guesses”.
It's very simple. In addition to the truth, there are a lot of lies. The number of lies often serves to obscure the identity of the truth. We know that the many world religions does not imply that there are multiple ways to God; merely that there are many lies, errors, deceptions and deviations from the one way that God Himself sanctions.
In fact many people today reject Christianity, and Judaism as well (especially Messianic Judaism which stands behind the reconquest of Jerusalem and the re-domination of Israel in our present and proposes the rebuilding of the Temple, etc.) because it is entirely bound up in politics and the larger world-situation.
They do reject both, and yes, it offends their geo-political preferences. I'm not sure that matters at all to the question of what's true.
As I say, I do not think "Zionism" is the right term. It is a word used to cover rather disparate beliefs, and as such, can be quite misleading. Christians do not have reason to exalt Israel in its present state; but they have good reason to insist that Jews have a right to live, and that Israel has been given in perpetuity to the Jewish nation.
And their warrant is Biblical. If, as any Christian must believe, the Bible is the Word of God, then God's bequeathing of the land of Israel to Israel is well within His power and right to do. And after that, what does people's geo-political squeamishness matter? But it does not mean, for example, that a Christian is bound always to be happy about what Israel, in its Messiah-rejecting present state, does. If nothing else, a Christian can certainly take rightful exception to policies like the Right of Return policy, or to the promotion of blasphemy, xenophobia or promiscuity in current Israel.
...there are hyper-conservative and hyper-strict Orthodox factions in Israel that actually believe that they are on the threshold of the historical moment when it will be possible to *rebuild the Temple*.
One day, it will be rebuilt. Of that, there can be no doubt. Prophecy assures us it will. But we have no need to make it happen: in fact, if we Christians did, it wouldn't be real "prophecy" at all. It would be our own doing.
The implication is, of course, that Christians and Jews, driven by Story, driven by their assertions, and driven by their personal views and beliefs, are engineering events of consequence for all people. This is serious stuff.
I am well aware that many Jews aspire to rebuild the Temple. But I see no evidence that Christians are "engineering" any of this. They don't need to. As I say, it will happen: the "how" is not up to us.
I am not sure of the metaphysical principles that stand behind the Christian revelation, or the Hebrew revelation, are actually being understood.
I have to remain unconvinced of this idea of "metaphysical principles standing behind" the Christian and Hebrew revelation. I think the case for such really stands to be made yet. As I said earlier, the burden of proof to show that such exist is surely on the shoulders of those who posit such a thing; and I'm not unwilling to discover such principles, should they exist. But
prima facie, the Biblical revelation is rather specific and clear, and does not seem to indicate any set of less literal "principles" floating nebulously behind the specifics.
Still, I'm willing to see the case made. So what are some of these "metaphysical principles" you believe to be "standing behind" the Christian and Hebrew revelation?
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