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SwampRangers 0 points ago +1 / -1

Jews didn't crucify Jesus. Jews weren't kicked out of 100 countries (#11 on list), the source only gives 12 countries. If cherry-picking allows us to say Jewish traditions reject Jesus, cherry-picking allows our enemies to say American traditions reject Jesus (but America's Constitution says Jesus is Lord, in the date clause). If we can distinguish whole people-groups, including literal children, as devilish based on the crimes of a few, we are condemning the innocent with the guilty, which God forbids from Genesis on.

If you admit there are well-behaved Jews (no one is "good" but God), then we don't get to call Jews children of the devil collectively, that's judging the innocent with the guilty. Something to think about.

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SwampRangers -2 points ago +1 / -3

As night falls on the Global City of Jerusalem on September 29, 2239, a single trumpet sounds from the sky…

Your cliffhanger has suddenly interested me greatly, Skil. Then what? Every tear has been bottled, so we need a sequel.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

For example do you think you ought to honor your parents if they are complete degenerates who treat you and your family like trash for no good reason?

Uh, yes, you honor them by obeying them up to the point of conscience and by telling them when your conscience forbids your obedience (because they have given an immoral order, which abrogates their authority). It is a principle of US Con Law that a law repugnant to the Constitution is no law and can be disobeyed freely; but the sovereign citizen must make that judgment in the moment before a court weighs in and rules the law unconstitutional in accord with the sovereign's judgment.

You're supposed to apply discernment and not follow the commandments like a freaking robot.

If they are God's commands I see no alternative but to obey them in exactly the same way that rocks obey his commands. This doesn't apply to immoral human commands as judged by the light of conscience. But your language making it ambiguous which commands shows that, once again, you've placed authority in the earthly institution that you do not count as derivative from the only Lawgiver. And you did that by using your own judgment, which you don't admit using.

If you lie to a demon to save the life of some innocent man is that bringing confusion?

A literal demon is not deceived by human lies because he doesn't trust anything. A demonic human still has the image of God in him and should either be treated as such or, in extreme cases, told formally that his actions have lost him the right of being treated by you as human. If you declare war against him in that formal, regulated way, then what you say afterward is not directed to him and he is left to deceive himself about what he overhears.

You see, this is why commandments cant be taken as universal maxims but should be examined case by case with wisdom.

The specifics do not contradict the generic because they involve different combinations of cases than the generic. If they were perceived as permitting one to punch holes in the generic freely without distinguishing the difference of case, then the generic would no longer be the generic and one would be making a false equivalence.

You're still on the hook for claiming there are times when one might steal or commit adultery or take the Lord's name in vain or have other gods before him. I might call you on that too.

"Genocide", a word coined by a Jewish lawyer, is defined with duckspeak so that a single statement that another takes as offensive is as genocidal as the Great Leap Forward. The reality is, as I've indicated, the just-war doctrine that one does not aggress another. When one declares war one offers terms of peace. The short answer is that 31 kings of Canaan refused terms of peace, and 1 king (in Gibeon) accepted them. There are very long answers on the subject posted here too, but if you start to question moral unity because you haven't yet understood the details of the OT wars then you're in the same position as the atheists, who first made this a fad. I know you don't want that in Orthodoxy.

So I continue counseling you to recognize your assumptions and realize that only God is the perfect self-consistent Law and his expressions of that Law in the Bible are sufficiently inspired formulations that we receive and model with some imperfections. That means that everything in our experience is our limited judgment and only God can count as the source of unlimited judgment. He gifts both the church and the individual with judgment powers and neither takes the other's place.

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SwampRangers 2 points ago +2 / -0

the second premise is false

I agree with u/guywholikesDjtof2024 that permitting lying promotes confusion. The link I just posted demonstrates that the risk of discovery of intentional deception often creates a greater spiritual harm (lifelong distrust) than the harm that the deception intends to avoid. I also pointed out it's contradictory if the Orthodox actually taught "regulated deliberate deception is acceptable" and "deception is always a sin", because that would be doing evil that good may result.

I can take pretty much any commandment and think about some exception where one would be justified to break it.

You really fell down on that one when you had to admit:

I meant the 10 commandments.

So it's not only in the West where people minimize the moral law to the Ten. Instead the Sermon on the Mount maximizes the moral law to every spiritual application, and the Two Commandments (and all being like unto them) demonstrate that every moral principle is inherent in the ramifications of every command. They are all one and that is why they are consistent.

What matters is intentionality and consequences.

God controls consequences so we don't get to use that as determinative because it's not in our control (e.g. if our lie is caught leading to greater harm). The devil pleads intentionality on the road to hell. So what matters is rather Truth at all costs. Discernment only arises from commitment to Truth and nothing else. Not "truth and exceptions", not "truthiness".

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SwampRangers 3 points ago +3 / -0

Shower thought: I figured out u/DresdenFirebomber. Everything he says achieves the purpose of making Musk haters look stupid, therefore (a system's purpose being what it does) he works for Musk, with or without pay, and can be safely regarded as a Musk advocate. This is consistent with Musk's own approach of self-ridicule if it calls attention to hypocrisy in others, and with the reasonable theory that Musk certainly has people both advocating for him and larping as his opponents. So, after years of confusion, I finally see what ties his whole persona together and can operate accordingly.

As with JG5, I recommend ignoring everything he says about natalism entirely and downvoting up to the limit. I do upvote Dresden on occasion if he says something totally agreeable (not so with JG5 who is still farming votes from lurker Nazis even when he really is trying to match the forum goals). But I'm adopting a stronger stance of Don't Feed The Trolls.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

aggression is also justified

I don't believe so, I use just-war doctrine.

John Chrysostom

I've never been able to dredge up support for Chrysostom, having the same feelings about him as you have about Augustine, and now you tell me he's a liar too. Not surprising. I'm comfortable with my selection of fathers. But that goes back to how one knows for sure, because your having a good selection isn't the only way to do it .... Ooh, you also exempt OrthodoxWiki even though it's been tested by true believers, interesting selectivity ....

I am appreciative of your links. Basil letter 8 to Caesarea does not contain the text quoted, and your source does not appear in search; the text appears to be an anon proverb, and does not speak of deception but of silence anyway, so we can exclude that.

To Ambrose, I do (because of just-war doctrine) admit of the use of subtlety in wartime but I do not count this as deception. The reason is that in a declared war, you have forthrightly told the enemy that you are treating him as dead to you and that you have no further relations with him. If it then happens that the enemy reads your communications and misleads himself, that's his own fault, you weren't speaking to him. If your army knows full well what it's doing but roleplays something else knowing that the enemy may easily draw a wrong conclusion, that's part of his status as an enemy that you told him about honestly. Relations are not restored except by ratified treaty (oath) appealing to something outside ourselves. So I don't call it deception in war. If someone's declared war against me and then requests parley or waves a white flag, that is a signal but cannot be trusted or confirmed until it is tested, so I had better still be on my guard; to use such a symbol and then to recant it would be deception in war and would be a war crime, but my part if I were deceived is also blameworthy, because the official comms were total war. Again, the command is about false testimony, not about impressions people get who you have excluded from your communication; the NT application is similar, Col. 3:9. The idea that laws may contradict each other is ultimately harmful to the principle of law in the first place, but the idea that case laws like just-war doctrine are about specific situations that have different or mixed characteristics compared to general situations is self-consistent and is how all statutory construction works (as Paul teaches by example).

So that leaves Chrysostom and Nazianzus, for which my reflexive answer is to exclude them as being the outliers. But, not having the depths of study on all the fathers, I realize that may be incomplete. A search shows that, yes, they got it from Origen and Clement of Alexandria (Migne 9:475-477), who gave Christianity the "therapeutic lie" that Chrysostom and Nazianzus invoke. Chrysostom's defense is stated to be "trying to apologize to his dear friend Basil, due to a similar deception that he committed against him", which is a rather telling detail. But the actual case Chrysostom gives is a doctor who allowed a patient to think that a medication was actually wine, apparently without actual lying. Though he extends this hypothetically to other cases and invokes Michal's statement in 1 Sam. 19:14 (not a formal lie), his comparing it to stagecraft (which is advertised as storytelling and therefore honest) indicates that we need not necessarily treat him as countenancing direct, intentional deception. (But I'm being charitable to him.) Therefore I consider myself free to interpret that the deception these fathers reject is that which involves material falsehood and not the use of means by which a goal is achieved without violating a person's right to consent or to be sufficiently informed. If the doctor is asked if the drink contains medication, he should answer truthfully, but if the doctor knows that the patient will drink that which smells like wine without questioning it then his accomplishing his goal by that route is by silence, not by deception.

The link shows that Tristam Engelhardt 2000 regards Orthodox ethics as teaching that deliberate deception to protect a soul from spiritual harm, via pure, exclusive good purpose, is both acceptable and yet a sin. I am free to reject such a contradictory reading of the fathers, and to regard Paisios of Mount Athos as normative rather than in tension with others (Christodoulos Ageloglou 1998 p. 140):

It is a sin for someone to lie. When he lies for a good cause, i.e. to save someone else, then it is half a sin, because the lie is for the benefit of his fellow man and not for himself. However, it is also considered a sin; therefore, we should keep it in mind, and not fall into the habit of telling lies for insignificant things.

Chrysostom also equivocates (admits contradictory definitions) on the position of reading him as hard in favor of deliberate deception:

Great is the power of deceit; only it must not be applied with a treacherous intention. Or rather, it is not right to call such action deceit, but good management and tact and skill enough to find many ways through an impasse, and to correct the faults of the spirit.

TLDR: I respect it's a hard case and church opinions differ, including interpretations of the interpretations. I remain subject to my own conscience that I do not permit deception at all even as I am not always called to tell everyone everything. You remain subject to your own conscience, even as you act like your conscience is identical with some construct that you describe as the church's conscience, but which you select from as if Augustine can be dismissed. Therefore ultimately we come back to the issue of individual judgment that is responsible to judge communal judgment. Follow a multitude, but not to evil.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

But in all forms of macroevolution, we all mutated from the same creature, a boy is a dog is a pig is a rat. The creature's name is LUCA, the mother of us all, and is worshipped as such (with hyperdulia only, of course).

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

If it did happen, the only reason it happened was because God caused it to happen. The only way for abiogenesis to occur is by way of a Miracle. It is physically impossible but with God nothing is impossible.

Exactly. The odds of abiogenesis happening by chance are zero since there are only about 10^150 possible events in the extant universe and the simplest organism requires many orders more events than that. Therefore it happened by fine-tuning and could have happened many times as easily as once.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

Like any other court (Deborah and Roy Bean are great examples). You accept those who consent to the jurisdiction of the seven laws and you rule accordingly and in consultation with other jurists doing the same thing. You can also publish ex parte rulings to speak to situations on your own initiative. Nobody has a monopoly on Noahidism, and the doomers are mistaken to think that those who've spent more time planning the subject have some natural advantage over those who have equal communal access to understanding the laws. This would be a good place to ask questions, but suffice for now that it appears eminently doable and would in theory answer any 3 hours of dooming.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +2 / -1

That's my point, it's not the Noahide laws, but their abuse. Since you and I are Noahides we have just as much right to contribute to the interpretation of Noahide law as anyone else. In fact, the constitution of the Swamp Rangers meets all the regulations one could ask of a Noahide court so we can put our interpretations up against anyone else's that claims to be a Noahide court. Anyone who reasonably volunteers to mediate disputes, like Deborah or Roy Bean, constitutes a Noahide court. So the objection is not to the reality but to some imagination based on ambiguous actions and misread Talmudic passages.

Now, as a Constitutionist I point out that all Americans are sovereigns and have responsibilities as such. Many don't take that responsibility and then complain that American law is sliding; but the fact is that as sovereigns they are free to protect themselves, to instruct their public servants differently, and to reject servant overreach by refusing to comply with unconstitutional demands, and when they complain that nothing can be done they abrogate responsibility. So if you don't like an interpretation of Noahide law, promulgate your own interpretation as a Noahide court!

There are seven laws; the law of no idolatry prohibits belief in other than the Creator God; and Abrahamic religions each recognize the principle of diversity of expression in the one God, in different ways. Therefore none of the Abrahamic religions is idolatry in itself under Noahide laws, they are only judged idolatrous within one religion as it judges another.

Maybe since nobody else is really doing it I should just declare myself a Noahide court and start judging, and admitting interrelationship with anyone else who declares a Noahide court. That would be fun, especially when the Jews come along. We could use the Abolition of Man appendix as our base interpretative framework. Then we could put these objections about such courts to rest. Noahidism is not unique to Judaism but can be claimed by 100-200 cultures that each have flood traditions.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +2 / -1

Jewish culture is based around seeing Jesus as a heretic, so they have been the enemies of Christian’s ever since it’s inception.

In the first century AD Jewish culture split down two paths, one of which was adopted at large by Gentiles and became called Christianity, and the other of which became rabbinism. But rabbinism was not defined on being the enemy of Christ, but on regrouping after the destruction of the temple. Since all of the first 5,000 Christians and many afterward were Jews, and since many of the first 5,000 were among those who previously called for Jesus's death (Acts 3-4), Jews have not been the enemies of Christians since the inception of the name "Christians"; Christians were just another sect of Jews just like Pharisees. Over a couple centuries, Jewish culture shifted from accepting that there were Christians among the Jews toward trying to avoid the question of why there were Christians at all, and those ethnic, cultural Jews who believed in Jesus became very isolated where they existed at all.

Therefore it seems to me that Jewish culture is based around following Moses and leaving Jesus entirely to the Gentiles, which is why the missionary group Jews For Jesus has, as its motto and goal, making the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue for Jews worldwide.

Rejecting would be having the religious knowledge of the abrahamic religions already and still choosing to hate Jesus.

Yes, for instance, but that's where we should be careful about charges that someone hates Jesus. Most Jews do not hate the man Jesus, because when someone goes on the record they are usually hating on a false concept that doesn't exist and isn't Jesus. For instance, they're hating a name by which they were wrongly persecuted.

Most Jews hate Jesus because the Jewish traditions see him as a heretic.

Not actually true, I've asked for Jewish tenets on this and they aren't forthcoming. Yes, there are a couple folk-religious documents that view Jesus as a heretic that are not endorsed by any rabbi as Judaism, but Jewish traditions as defined by rabbis are essentially about remaining silent about Jesus's status. There's a new wave among some rabbis who want to reclaim Jesus for Judaism as a good Torah-observant Jew so that other Jews will want to be as Torah-observant as Jesus was. But when individuals speak against Jesus, the rabbis distance themselves from that position officially. I'm open to alternative evidence of course.

TLDR: I see no evidence that Jewish culture is based around seeing Jesus as a heretic, that Jews have been the enemies of Christians ever since the inception of the name Christians, that Jews at large choose to hate Jesus, or that Jewish traditions see Jesus as a heretic.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +2 / -1

What do you think Noahidism is? What antisemitism laws are perceived as unconstitutional? How could criticizing Israel be legislated as forbidden in America? Since the video is about Australia, what do Australia's laws have to do with the US Constitution?

If a law is unconstitutional it can be challenged up to the Supreme Court, which to my knowledge hasn't permitted any unconstitutional antisemitism law. The speaker's first conclusions don't follow from his clip of Netanyahu doing the ordinary posturing and demanding that sovereigns do one to another.

Since the video is 3 hours without transcript, I'm not bothering to continue beyond the start, which would be to enter the middle of an argument when definitions are not provided upfront.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

Did you know that Pharisees gave the world the concept of memory erasure at birth, in Niddah 30b:23? You believe the Talmud now? I don't think Pharisees are doing the memory erasing.

And once emerges into the airspace of the world, an angel comes and slaps it on its mouth, causing it to forget the entire Torah, as it is stated: "Sin crouches at the entrance."

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

Well, we know that it's ultimately from Life, but the fact is that the record attests that nonliving matter became living matter: the earth brought forth plants, the waters and earth brought forth creatures, and God made man from the dust of the earth. What contradicts what we know is for it to have only happened once. The ICR shatters this paradigm by pointing out that many specimens of each species and one specimen of mankind were created from nonliving matter independently; that allows me to agree with the atheists about abiogenesis and to disagree with them about how often it happens and whether it could ever happen without fine-tuning.

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SwampRangers 2 points ago +2 / -0

In this case the command not to kill is contradicted by the command to love and serve your family.

The command is not to murder (though it's often translated kill, but this is clarified by the context of executions). The contradiction is not in the intent but in falsely resolving the ambiguity in English. Killing in self-defense is specifically separated from murder in the case example of a night break-in (Ex. 22:2). That separation is not a contradiction but a different case that has a different law; canons of construction allow the general case to be stated in one place and the uncovered specific cases in another place. Reading and resolving the whole Torah is very enlightening about this detail of noncontradiction!

So you reject Augustine, who I understand counts as Orthodox, and affirm a doctrine I've traced only to Origen. I agree there is a time not to tell the whole truth if deception isn't involved, but that time expires when one is asked to testify the whole truth. I don't agree there is ever a time to deceive or mislead and I asked you indirectly who says so. On OrthodoxWiki the only relevant topic I get is prelest. It's an understandable intramural debate that has no polemic in it, so I appreciate your taking the time to engage it.

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +1 / -0

All the quotes you brought up do not deny that the Jews that reject Jesus are a “child of the devil” .... Bottom line is that the Jews(ones that deny Jesus) are “children of the devil” as a whole and are not the “chosen people of God”. They should be treated like any other group of people.

Essentially correct, anyone who rejects Jesus is a servant or child of the devil (slight diff involved), and they should be evangelized like any people. Keep in mind that a Lifeway survey finds there are about a million Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah, out of about 15 million Jews in all, so I usually say Rabbinical Jews to distinguish from Messianic Jews. The only difficulty is that it's uncharitable to relegate any whole to the devil when it is our job to spread the good news winsomely (i.e. not to destroy culture but to work within culture and only destroy what is an obvious sin). Much of what's said about "the Jews" is stated as if it applies to every innocent man, woman, and child, and so that calls for care.

Interestingly, the KJV only uses the phrase "chosen people" once, for a certain select Gentile army.

When I’m talking about Jews, I’m talking about those who deny Christ.

Correct, you are, and that's not what the Bible does, and it's not what the Messianic Jews (our brothers in Christ) do. The Rabbinical Jews do not have a formal position on Messianic Jews, but the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that they are halakhically children of Jews even though they do not have full rights (being also Christians). Therefore the proposition that "Jews" automatically means deniers of Christ is not a straightforward use of the word and gets in the way of evangelism.

Further, I've asked for years whether any congregational rabbi or rabbinical organization formally rejects Jesus in plain English, and I've come to find they don't. Rabbinical Judaism does not take a formal position on Jesus because they know what kind of blowback they get when their individual congregants do. I explain to everyone, they're too cagey for that. And that is our opportunity to give them the good news of Jesus the Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures and their own rabbinical sources.

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SwampRangers 0 points ago +1 / -1

The Ashkenazi have admitted that they arose from intermarriage of converts, which affects the gene pool. The question is whether they are the same people, and that is answered by the fact that peacefully merging into the same agreed polity as someone else makes you the same people. I've asked for proof that they are not the same people and none has come forth. In tenth century France, Ju was the short form and Judaeus was the long form of the same term for the same people.

If we Americans may tell Jews they're not true Jews and we know who are true Jews, Jews may tell us Americans that we're not true Americans and they know who are true Americans. Those who are othering Jews by calling them non-Jews are doing what they accuse Jews of doing.

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SwampRangers 2 points ago +2 / -0

if a man comes to kill your friend you actually have a duty to lie to him and save your friend (supposing fighting is not an option).

Many have weighed in differently on the issue, which is why I gave the note. Perhaps you have a magisterial citation about my duty to tell lies as if one man can compel another man's testimony. I appeal to Is. 54:16-17 that no entrapment to lie can succeed:

Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

Further, no command can contradict another, so if you are faced with an apparent contradiction it is your own failure of discernment, Matt. 22:39-40:

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

You and I denounce Origen, and yet the introduction into Christianity of the thought that Christians have a "right of reserve" to not tell the whole truth is Origenism.

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SwampRangers -1 points ago +1 / -2

I respect your other comments and you seem wise enough to take direction from a few simple indicators.

Yet the jews crucified him

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus .... and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! ... And they crucified him (Matt. 27:27, 29, 35). Roman soldiers.

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets (1 Th. 2:14-15). Not "crucified". "The Jews" here excludes Thessalonian Jews and Christian Jews.

When Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel .... The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied .... And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead .... And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers .... Many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand (Acts 3:12, 13, 15, 17, 4:4). Hundreds of Israelites who delivered Jesus were of the first 5,000 Christians.

and didn't recognize him as savior.

The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree: him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead (Acts 10:36-41).

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Rom. 1:16).

And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law (Acts 21:20). Greek, literally "many myriads", i.e. over 30,000 Torah-observant Messianic Jews in Jerusalem alone.

A jewish person who doesn't recognize Jesus as saviour is still a jew and a child of the devil.

Yes, like any Gentile, except the English Bible capitalizes "Jewish" and "Jew".

One who converts to Christianity is no longer a jew, but a christian.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). So, only in the sense that one is "no longer" a man or woman. Further:

Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew (Acts 21:39). While a Christian.

He is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God (Rom. 2:29).

That's what the bible says.

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SwampRangers -1 points ago +1 / -2

Yes, in case you didn't see me saying it the last 20 times, Jesus Christ is my Lord, Savior, and King. He also prophesied twice that the Jews would welcome him in the Father's Name (Luke 13:35, Matt. 23:39). Paul expands on this prophecy (Rom. 11). So, for the sake of Jesus Christ, my Lord, Savior, and King, I preach the good news of the death of Christ for my sin and the resurrection of Christ for my glorification to everyone, Jew first and Gentile also. On occasion that includes straightening out the Gentiles about who the Jews are.

I've also denounced the Talmud here repeatedly for its superstitious spiritism, its casuistic unawareness, and its stifling isolationism. However, I cannot denounce the Talmud on things it doesn't say, and there's a lot of other denunciation floating around for that reason. For instance, I've denounced Rabbi Ulla for saying the Jesus who was hung on a tree at Passover was an inciter; but I cannot denounce the Talmud for accurately reporting that Ulla said that as an outlier view and the majority ruled differently.

Did you recant your statement that "King of the jews" (your lowercase) was not an actual title, or do you "pathetic"ally "rewrite" Matt. 2:2?

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SwampRangers 3 points ago +3 / -0

Lying can be virtuous if you do it to save someone from the gestapo.

Nota bene: Corrie ten Boom didn't lie to the gestapo when they asked if there were any Jews in her house, she said "Search for yourself". Athanasius didn't lie to the government when they asked if he had seen Athanasius, he said "He's very near, you can still catch him."

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SwampRangers -1 points ago +1 / -2

So you do need a course in linguistics because you don't know the difference between convergent homonyms and etymologically pedigreed variants. Do you want the links?

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SwampRangers 1 point ago +2 / -1

As to this one (note my reply might be delayed if you don't reply to me directly or ping me with the string "u/SwampRangers"), I just told you the evidence is in Kenyon's extensive field notes. I've also just linked you evidence from many hostile witnesses that Yeshua's life was marked by a reputation for performing inexplicable works ("wonders"). Eyewitness evidence is actually the best testimony, but the miracle (inexplicable event) that 25% of the known world regards Yeshua as God the Son is a pretty good subsidiary evidence that there must be something there.

I understand if you think my suppositions are based on belief. I call myself a skeptic though because I went through doubts and worked out every one of them so that the unevidenced beliefs I had as a child were modified so that my views are now based on all the evidence (facts and logic) available. You might call that "suppositions" if you use the same word for your own hypotheses, but IRL we don't call it a hypothesis or supposition that we ate breakfast this morning. We call it a (sufficiently evidenced) fact. So the actual case is that I have sufficiently evidenced views based on facts and logic that have been tested against all comers, and continue to be. I would hope you aspire to the same.

So, though the Jericho case is very interesting and also involves some conspiracy to control the evidence released, I think it's more tangential and you should focus on what you think happened to Yeshua and his followers when he died, because that's really the hinge on which Yeshua's testimony of other miracles turns. For that I refer you to my separate comment on it.

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SwampRangers 0 points ago +1 / -1

I never said it changed its meaning, so you changed my meaning. Ju means Judaeus and is the same word as Jew. Would you like a linguistics course? Or would you like to do what nobody here has ever done and explain who the two people-groups are that you imagine existed side by side?

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