Response to

Does Yeshua qualify as the Messiah?

As written by Penina Taylor Posted at:

http://teshuvah.com/articles/Does_Yeshua_qualify_as_the_Messiah.htm

 

BY

TYRONE A. STEELE

8/15/2006

 

First, please allow me to offer my sincerest respect for your belief system. I consider it an honor to have the opportunity to read your article/essay concerning your position on the Messiah, as to whether or not Yeshua (the Nazarene) was He or not. I am grateful to see such fervor in your belief and your love for יְיָ that you would take the time respond to what you believe to be an honest two-thousand year old mistake, and what you believe to be an offense to יְיָ It is a true sign of a person’s love for the Lord that s/he would take the time to compile this argument.

 

And while I rejoice in the opportunity to respond to your essay, and respect your sincere love for יְיָ it is also my joy to share with you my responses in an open format.

I consider you, as all people of יְיָ my spiritual cousin, brother or sister, as was intended.

 

I pray deeply that you will find this response in the spirit that it was intended, which is nine parts love and one part apologetics. I have belabored for nearly six hours on this document. I hope if finds you receptively.

 

   I am by no means offended by anything you wrote. In fact, I am glad to see such faith and fervor for the Lord’s word. Nevertheless, you have only strengthened by belief that the Messiah has already come.

 

Let me clarify to start that though I could fill a compendium with convincing and factual arguments for Christianity, I will not use this response as a means to evangelize or as an apologetic platform. Though my belief system is based on both external and internal evidences as well as logic, archeology and various ancient historical documents that all point to the idea that the Messiah was alive between 5AD and 33AD, I will not explicate those arguments in this reply.

I will keep my response purely non-argumentive wherever possible. 

 

Let it then be sufficient to say that if I could not prove it to be true, I would not follow it. Some would view that as lacking faith on my part. But I view it as residing in an immutable fortress of belief. My belief cannot be shaken since I have already experienced and survived the great tremors of grave doubt by means of somber research, prayer and commitment to finding the truth.

 

You likely rushed through a portion of your article and I would like to assist you in those areas.

 

SECTION I

Where I DO agree with you

 

א.  I detest the statement of anyone in any religion (particularly mine) that if they don’t have an answer they just “believe.” I continually challenge the idea of blind faith, since πεστις, or “trust” is not “blind ignorance,” or “choosing not to know” and doing so for whatever reason is in my view weakening your belief system.
You will not get that response from me.

ב.  Isaiah 7:14 (ALL Biblical references in NKJV)
“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel”

a.      The Christian view of Isaiah 7:14 is without a doubt the most rehearsed and yet the most obvious of all abhorably incorrect interpretations of the Jewish Bible in all of Christian doctrine. I have written before on the blatant and lethargic misinterpretation of this verse. I criticize this interpretation emphatically at every opportunity, giving even more reasons than even you supplied in your article that it is not messianic.
So, I agree with you.

b.     Christianity by no means hinges on this passage. If it did, I am most certain that I would not be a Christian still today for it is the weakest argument my religion has and is absolutely the most blatantly incorrect one.

c.      It is certainly not a premise and is not foundational to Christianity. To indicate otherwise would be doctrinal absurdity.

ג. 2 Samuel 7:12-13
“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men.”

a.      I have not heard this argument, but I nonetheless agree with you that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Messiah. It is clearly not a messianic prophecy. Anyone who argues otherwise is either illiterate (factually speaking) or has predetermined the meaning before it was read (in Hermeneutics this is referred to as “presuppositions”).

b.     Of all the qualifications and reasons that one should or should not believe the Messiah has already come and given His life as a final sacrifice as was promised, this is the least necessary, if at all. I doubt any of my colleagues have ever used this argument before. I see no relevance to the validity of Christianity in this verse.

c.      You did not mention verses 13&14 that make clear this is not a messianic prophecy, since the Son of יְיָ would by no means commit iniquity.

d.     Your interpretation of this section of Scripture, saying that “so long as there is a king on the throne, he will be a descendant of Solomon that is a promise forever” is defunct at best. יְיָ does not break promises. He punishes when necessary. Israel broke those promises, and that covenant, over and over resulting in many exiles and Diasporas, finally resulting in the great Diaspora after the destruction of the Herod’s Temple in 70AD just as it was completed and just as prophesied.

e.      If there were no Jewish kings after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and the line was in fact broken in the first century, then no Jew of this era could possibly trace their lineage back to king David. This is in reference to your statement that, “if the king or the nation of Israel itself is disobedient to G-d, there will be no king or kingdom and the nation will be the laughingstock of the world.” In fact, it was disobedient to His laws and the kingdom was annihilated in the exact manner it was predicted (Matt. 24, Luke. 18, etc). The Tanakh contends that fact repeatedly and openly.

ד. Additionally, though you did not mention it in your article, Psalm 22 is neither a messianic prophecy. This is another misappropriated tool of Christian doctrine. It was a song by David about his woes of being left and abandoned and persecuted while in hiding from Samuel – nothing more. Yeshua sang it (at least in part) on the cross as a means of expressing the same feeling – abandonment by His people.

ה.   I’m in agreement with you that nowhere in the Tanakh does it recognize a need for the Messiah to have been born of a Virgin. Nevertheless (assuming for the sake of argument that He was immaculately conceived), being born from a virgin does not disqualify Yeshua from being the Messiah since nothing in the Tanakh said it is a disqualification.

ו. I think it would be absurd to argue that Mary was His lineage to David since Yosef could not be. I don’t know where you’ve heard that before, but it is the silliest thing I’ve heard to date.

 

 

SECTION II

Faults I find in your arguments

 

א.  Concerning again, 2 Samuel 7:12-13, you argued that, “G-d promises that the Messiah will be a descendant of David, and he will be a king.” 
But I cannot find that meaning in this particular verse as it was intended to be understood at the time. Although your statement is fundamentally (if only partially) true, it is incorrect to apply it to these verses to that same idea, lest you defeat your own main argument that this verse does not concern the Messiah. It is a contradiction to apply two opposing ideas to the same set of verses.
I will elaborate (painfully) on this idea in the next several sections.


ב.  Jeremiah 22:30
“Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.”

a.      Your argument that, “This verse tells us that although all the future kings of Israel will be from David, none of them will be a descendent of Jeconiah” is again self-defeating.

Allow me to explain.

If, in fact, the Messiah must be of the lineage of David and if, as you argued, Jechoniah was cursed with no lineage, that “this does not mean that he will once again have a descendent on the throne” and that, “it does not change the fact that he will not have any more descendents on the throne” then there cannot be a Messiah at ALL of Davidic lineage.
You have defeated your own argument against an earlier Messiah by allowing for no Messiah whatsoever.

b.     This entire passage is clearly concerning the (at the time) future desolation of Judah by the Babylonians (vs. 8&9) “And many nations will pass by this city; and everyone will say to his neighbor, ‘Why has the LORD done so to this great city?’ Then they will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods and served them.’”

c.      Thusly, your statement (again), “this verse tells us that although all the future kings of Israel will be from David, none of them will be a descendent of Jeconiah” is not applicable to the verse you were attempting to apply it to. The verse in Jeremiah says nothing of the sort, yet you have extrapolated that from the intended meaning.

 

ג.  Haggai 2:21-23

“Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying:’ I will shake heaven and earth.
I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I will destroy the strength of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them; the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.
‘In that day,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel,’ says the LORD, ‘and will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

 

d.     Your argument that, you “do not think that this prophecy has even come true yet, for one very good reason, G-d has not yet destroyed the strength of the Gentile nations” is not representative of the actual history of the Jewish Nation.

e.      Haggai had an intended audience in an intended era of Jewish history. That audience was Judah in the 6th century BC, not Penina Taylor in the 21st century. It was a message to a people who regarded it with immediate importance.

Specifically, it targets the following dates (retroactive Georgian calendar):

I. 1 August 29, 520 BC

II.    5 September 21, 520 BC

III.  19-20 December 18, 520 BC

 

f.       This prophecy was, again, concerning the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians. It is all historical. It has all taken place. It is all archaeologically and biblically verifiable. To deny so denies the validity of the Tanakh.

g.      You cannot take a 2,000 year leap from verse 20 to verse 21 (this is a common practice amongst not only orthodox Jews but post-millennial Christians).
It is exegetically abhorrent to make this abysmal leap from one millennium to another and then back again in the course of a few verses.

h.      The meaning of “Gentile Nations,” as apposed to your concatenated version of the term, was used repeatedly in the Tanakh and the New Testament as a reference to Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, etc. The term Gentile does not necessitate a reference to Europeans in the 21st century. It means “those who are not Jewish.”
Your application of “Gentile Nation,” was therefore misapplied.

 

i.       Unless יְיָ is not trustworthy, Haggai 2:21-23 cannot be applied as evidence that the chain of Jeconiah was broken. And if it was an indication that the lineage was broken, again, as stated before, there simply cannot be a Messiah at all according to your requirements of a Messiah; not in the first century, and certainly not in the 21st century, since there would be no earthly lineage to continue the monarchy, per your argument.

 

j.       Jeremiah lived until about 580BC. He prophesied and witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews to Babylon. Jeremiah witnessed the destruction of Jeconiah/Zerubbabel, as well as his replacement by Mattanyahoo/Zedekiah who was not of Davidic lineage.
Therefore, the lineage was broken as of that time. And again, if it cannot be shown to have been re-established (ordained by יְיָ according to Haggai) then according to your requirements of a Messiah there could not have been a Messiah, nor could there ever be, genealogically speaking.
Nevertheless we all persist that it is possible.

 

k.      For clarification/informational purposes:

I.  Haggai was a prophet “נָבִיא” sent to encourage the people to rebuild the second temple after the return from exile sixty years later, around 520BC.

II.    Jeremiah and Haggai wrote at entirely different stages of the existence of Jerusalem for entirely different reasons.

III.   Zerubbabel means “Seed of Babylon” and is an Assyrian title for Jehoiachin (Jeconiah). He laid the foundation for the rebuilding of that second temple Haggai was there to encourage the people about.  Likely, this was an installed Jeconiah, not the same one Jeremiah spoke of.

IV.  1 Chronicles 3:17-19 states that Jeconiah is the son of Pedaiah - a scribal error, according to the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia 1908[1]).
These errors are common, even in Christian biblical literature. They are errors by human hands, not by the hand of יְיָ. It is our duty to understand the error and work with it. The incomplete (yet not incorrect) genealogies of Yeshua in Luke and Matthew are evidences only that human hands wrote those letters. Neither does the scribal error in Chronicles disqualify the entire Jewish bible from being true.

 

l.       Please elaborate on how it is possible to have any kind of Messiah born of David if Jeconiah is the last of the line and was not re-established (in your own words), yet in your own words, “… the Messiah will be a descendent of King David through Solomon, and that it cannot be through the line of Jeconiah.”
Please elaborate on how this is at all possible. Logically, it is self-contradictory to say that “C” (or even “D” or “E”) must result from “A” even though “B” doesn’t exist.

 

ד. Birth of Yeshua from a virgin

a.      As prior stated, the Tanakh does NOT recognize a need for the Messiah to have been born of a Virgin. Nevertheless (assuming for the sake of argument that He was immaculately conceived), being born from a virgin does not disqualify Yeshua from being the Messiah since nothing in the Tanakh said it is a disqualification.

b.     A virgin birth does not necessitate that He was not the Messiah. This is in reference to your statement, “Joseph’s genealogy means absolutely nothing if he is not the father of Yeshua.”

                                i.     This is clearly an improvable statement

                              ii.     As the Son of יְיָ that, by default, out-classifies being (or not being) the son of Yosef and out-weighs any other argument. Any argument beyond that concept is futile.

                            iii.     Unfortunately, I have not found anywhere in the entirety of the Tanakh any verse of consequence (properly interpreted) that calls for or supports the necessity of either:

1.     a lineage from David in order to qualify as the Messiah, or

2.     a virgin birth in order to qualify as the Messiah

                            iv.     Without these requirements, the virgin birth, even unproven, does not disqualify Yeshua bar Yosef Nazaret as the Son of יְיָ.

                              v.     If the Messiah is to be called the Son of יְיָ, in a literal sense, which is how the Jewish community also understands it, then your aforementioned statement that “His genealogy means absolutely nothing” is in dire conflict with the idea that the Father of the Messiah MUST BE יְיָ – otherwise He would be born of the polluted blood from Adam.
The Messiah would have to be the spiritual Son of יְיָ and the physical son of the mother, especially if, according to your own logic, the line of David was not reestablished by יְיָ in Jeconiah.

Nevertheless, “sin” is an action, not an inheritance. It is something one does in violation of the Lord’s law of the heart, not something one becomes by way of genealogy. Yet, even being born of a virgin one could still choose to rebel against יְיָ. One could willingly make a conscious decision to rebel, even born of a virgin.
To be sinless one must follow not laws or genealogical lines but the will of יְיָ.

                            vi.     “G-d is not the seed of Solomon. If G-d is the father of Yeshua as the gospels assert, then Yeshua is not a descendant of Solomon.”

1.     We agree on the idea that Yeshua could not = יְיָ and יְיָ could not = Yeshua in the traditional understanding of the notion. You fundamentally misapprehend the doctrinal view of this perception.

a.      The Messiah should be the Son of יְיָ, as a different identity than יְיָ. There is a clear subject-object distinction between the two.

b.     The Messiah should have the powers of יְיָ with Him.

c.      The Messiah should be sinless in order to be the Son of יְיָ.

d.     Yeshua was the legal son of Yosef, though this is not consequential.

 

2.     This next statement is not in alignment with common Jewish or Christian doctrine but is how the following statement by Yeshua would have been understood at the time.

Interestingly enough, Yeshua answers this problem of genealogy by stating that the “teachers of the law” were misleading the people in making them believe that an earthly genealogy was a requirement of the Messiah [see SECTION II(ד)(b)(iii)(1) of this document].

Mark 12:35-39
"How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:
   "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his [David’s] son?’"

 

As he taught, He said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."

 

 

ה.  Genealogy of Yeshua

a.      Without rehashing the necessity (or lack of necessity) of a virgin birth, or of an earthly genealogical requirement, let us take into account the following:

                                i.     The genealogy written by Matthew was written by a Jew for Jews.

                              ii.     The genealogy written by Luke was written by a Gentile Doctor for Gentiles.

                            iii.     The entirety of the Christian Bible (NT) was written in 1st century Hellenistic Greek.

                            iv.     Generational gaps do not qualify as an incorrect genealogy, simply incomplete.

                              v.     These letters (the gospels) are, by all standards, the first biographical history books ever written before Josephus Flavius wrote his compendiums in the 1st century AD. 

                            vi.     The two writers did not have ‘cliff notes’ extensive libraries or reference materials to work with, and did not know the Jewish literature as the “teachers of the law” did during those times. I imagine the lists were written mostly (if not entirely) from memory and talking with others about the correct lineage. You asked “Did he [Luke] not do his research?” Of course he did. But paper was very expensive. Most people memorized everything they knew from the time they were children, as most people were also utterly illiterate. Luke was a physician. He was likely multilingual (as were most people) and could write in Latin as well as Greek.

                          vii.     A perfect truth in its entirety does not necessarily come from perfect people and omissions and minor errors are common, as we discussed earlier. But this does not invalidate the truth in the message as it was intended – unless it also invalidates the truth of the Tanakh.
By exegetical standards, Scripture is infallible. But man is errant.

ו. 1 Timothy 1:3-4 “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia – remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.”

a.      After an apparently perfunctory review of Paul’s statement, you made the assertion that, “even at that time he may have realized that there was a problem with the genealogy listed for Yeshua.” You used the word “perhaps” at the beginning of that sentence because you honestly did not know for certain what it meant.

b.     Paul was not writing about the genealogies of the Messiah as being in dispute, but Paul was writing about the Jews in the Synagogues and Churches who were beating their chests about their lineage. He was contending that it is without point to do so.

c.      Please note that Paul was Saul of Tarsus, a renowned Pharisee and keeper of the Law who admittedly hunted, killed and persecuted Christians with fervor.
He had the equivalent of three doctoral degrees in theology by today’s measure by the time he was 22 and spoke at least three languages, probably four.
Additionally, he actually lived in the first century before the fall of Jerusalem, which, all combined, gives him a greater deal of authority in the subject of first century Christianity and Judaism than frankly any other character in all of history.

Yet, he turned to “the way” in a blinding light on the road to Damascus.

Go figure that.

 

Thank you again for your time and willingness to read my responses.

I hope that none of them were taken in offense, as none were intended in that way.

 

May the Lord light your path and open your spirit to the treasure that is freely given, if only you would receive it.

 

Tyrone A. Steele


[1] Jewish Encylopedia. “Zerubbabel” (accessed 08/15/2006); http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=115&letter=Z; internet.