Impromptu Debate on Subjects Pertaining to the Mosaic Law

I used to be a regular at a particular IRC channel that was meant to be about Israel. There was this one woman in particular who claimed to be a Christian. At the same time, she had a habit of saying things that I considered highly offensive and that I knew was offensive to Jews. An example of the things with which I took exception were as follows:

1. She said that circumcision is done away in Christianity, implying that Christians contradict the Old Testament.
2. She demonstrated sympathy for suicide bombers.
3. She would bless people who spoke against Israel.

I ended up deciding it was time to have a showdown and tell her how offensive this was. I talked to her in private. Everything I have posted here is true to the original with only some minor alterations for public posting purposes.^[1] It is quite lengthy, but I feel it is best to put it up without trying to shorten the length and lose any context.

Countering Dr. Scott Johnson’s Myths of Messianic Judaism

I feel it important to counter some misconceptions behind the views that Dr. Scott Johnson holds on Messianic Jews and Messianic Judaism. I already dealt with abusive usage of the Talmud by both him and a member of his forum staff, but this time I’ll be dealing with his misunderstanding of Messianic Judaism itself.^[1][2] This won’t be difficult to do, as he’s provided ample material in the same sermon I used to deal with his obviously fake, biased, and interpretative “quotes” from the Talmud.^[3]

Countering Dr. Scott Johnson’s Accusations of the Talmud

I’ve already written about Dr. Scott Johnson’s view of Messianic Jews, and his forum staff’s view of them.^[1] In this last case, a member of his forum staff was found to be posting an article with anti-Semitic lies from a cursed Catholic priest. These lies were debunked many years ago, but still they were posted.

Dr. Johnson, however, has one sermon in particular available at Sermon Audio in which he attempts to explain that the Talmud is blasphemous.^[2] He tries to quote from the Talmud to make his point. There’s just one problem; many of the quotes he’s using are either fictitious or taken totally out of context. It would then seem that just as a member of his own staff didn’t vet the information on the Talmud that they received, neither does he.

Anti-Semitism Under the Guise of Christianity

I was listening to a speaker, whose video was on youtube, talking against the New King James Version.^[1] While I agree with the underlying premise that the NKJV changes things that should not be changed and is not perfect, I was rather disappointed with his arguments. Furthermore, I was even more disappointed with the speaker’s ridiculous jump from talking against the NKJV to speaking against Messianic Jews and their service to the “Torah,” a Hebrew word that refers to the Mosaic Law that he said somewhat mockingly. I was rather angry, and decided to do something about it.

The speaker’s name is Dr. Scott Johnson, who I don’t feel sorry about naming since he advocated in one of his other sermons that those who spout incorrect doctrine need to be shamed publicly.^[2] If this is how he feels about it, he can receive a taste of it. Besides which, if he’s correct and I’m wrong (which isn’t the case, but I speak theoretically), the publicity may actually end up helping him instead of hurting him.

The youtube video had a link to a forum for people who wanted to deal with Dr. Johnson and his friends. I put a post on the forums, explaining why it was wrong to attack Messianic Jews, demonstrating that the Law of God was given to be physically observed by the children of Israel but not the Gentiles in the same manner.^[3] In the ensuing discussion, it became readily apparent that the people running this forum seemed quite anti-Semitic in doctrine and in beliefs.

Observance of the Mosaic Law as a Sign of the Messianic Era

I was recently debating in a forum over the status of the Mosaic Law. One of the things that was brought up for discussion was what the prophets had to say about the Messianic era. While my opponents seemed to believe that the Messiah destroyed the Law (even though one denied this, but semantically appeared to agree with it), I noticed that the Bible is quite clear that the opposite is true; Messiah brings acceptance of the Law.

Some Examples of Textual Change in the LXX From the Hebrew in Samuel

I have already written about the Septuagint, the ancient mistranslation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, being corrupted and moved away from the original Hebrew meaning, although I have not gotten into much detail as of yet.^[1][2][3] It appears that there are many that seek to run to the LXX, as it is also known, in order to secure readings when the Hebrew is considered imperfect. A sad aspect is that the Hebrew is not always recognized as the perfect text that it is. Instead, the people who reject the Hebrew end up rushing towards imperfect texts.

Questioning the Claimed Septuagint-NT Connection

Many of the so-called scholars in the field of Textual Criticism think that it is a done deal to argue that the New Testament authors utilized the Septuagint, the supposed translation of the Old Testament into Greek, in their quotations of the Old Testament. Also known as the LXX, the Septuagint is held up by various scholars as being something which the apostles revered and held up as the Word of God. Usually, this follows by encouraging people not to disparage the LXX, which then generally requires people to bash the Hebrew of the Old Testament, known today as the Masoretic Text, or MT, as being imperfect.

One problem is, there is no definitive evidence for this assertion that the apostles quoted and used the LXX. In fact, most of the supposed evidence is actually either misinterpretation of facts or blatant assumptions. It’s way passed the time that people reconsider the quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament. From where did the apostles get these quotes of the Old Testament? Why do some of these quotes appear to match the Septuagint?

An Older Questioning of Vaticanus

Vaticanus is held up by many of today’s so-called textual scholars as being an example of an ancient text, truer to the original than many of our current texts. The first problem comes with the attitude that we have lost the readings of the originals, which is impossible.^[1] Another problem is that Vaticanus is a complete mess, with renderings that could not have been in the originals. Of interest, it was even identified to contain an error by a scribe of some sort who had access to it.

An Encounter with Subjective Morality

Earlier this week, I found a blog in which a person asserted that he believed that literal reading of the Bible could not be defended.^[1] As a result he challenged anyone to take him up on the offer to defend a portion of the Bible that gave rules pertaining to slavery. I was about to respond, and even typed up a short response, but decided against it. After all, I didn’t think he was personally worth my time.

Later on, he saw a comment I made pertaining to the Bible on someone else’s blog, and added his own comment, expressly inviting me to respond to that same challenge I had read earlier. Taking advantage of this invitation, I wrote a response, simple and to the point, declaring slavery, in the context that the Bible sanctioned it, to be correct. In response, he further questioned me about other things from the Bible, to which I replied in the same vein. He was so upset over my answers, that he wrote an entire blog post analyzing my thought process, declaring me to be “some sort of moral retard”^[2], although he claims he meant it “in a good natured way.”^[3]

It seems someone got a little angry.

AspectJ and Aspect Oriented Programming

I spent some time looking over AspectJ recently, and I’m somewhat impressed. Granted, I wasn’t actually doing anything serious with it, but what I did was enough to give me a taste of the language. Furthermore, I’m actually thinking about moving a specific project over to it.