[Agent Smith]

Judean People's Front, etc. etc.

So what happened to the other prospective Messiahs? Did they simply haemorrhage believers to Jesus and fade away?

[Helzerel]

The following are just a few examples of how Judiasm means that all people are in it together, as a community or one big happy family, and not just living as individuals as some people appear to think. re. the 'Question about Jewish Faith thread.'
I had 10minutes spare today during lunch so decided to sit down and type up some stuff off the top of my head just for you folks to enjoy.

--- Whilst the High Holy Days mark the beginning of the change in date in each Jewish year (e.g. from 5767 to 5768), the beginning of the Jewish calendar is with the month 'Nissan' in which the exodus from Egypt took place. The main purpose of Passover (the festival commemorating this event) is so that ''each generation must see itself as if it came out of Egypt.''
'
-- Indeed, anyone vaguely familiar with the Passover service will know of the '4 Sons', one of whom is the 'wicked son.' Why is he designated as wicked? Because he asks the question ''what does this service mean to you?'' i.e. To you, and not him. By excluding and segregating himself out from the rest of the Jewish people he is considered a heretic.

-- Maimonides takes this further by stating that one who observes all the commandments with diligence yet does not fast with the rest of the Jews when they are pained, or does not rejoice in their joy when they all celebrate has no place in the World to Come.

-- Many other religions encountered G-d through one man, one specially chosen prophet e.g. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha. However, Judaism is the only religion in which G-d met all the people. 600,000 stood at Mt Sinai when we were given the Torah and G-d Himself spoke the first two of the 10 commandments to us.

[NathanL]

who for one reason or another was more convincing than other false messiahs.

Yeh, Resurrection kinda makes a man convincing

[Agent Smith]

If your faith is such that you believe it occurred.

[Justintabib]

(Original post by Helzerel)
Many other religions encountered G-d through one man, one specially chosen prophet e.g. Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha. However, Judaism is the only religion in which G-d met all the people. 600,000 stood at Mt Sinai when we were given the Torah and G-d Himself spoke the first two of the 10 commandments to us.

Hmmm ... interesting. So you saying God spoke to the entire population about the first 2 commandments at the time of Moses PBUH?
And on what basis do you claim that? Like any verse from Torah or is it a historical thing?

But undoubtedly, the first two commandments form the most integral part of all three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Talking about common terms between you and the rest -- Say there is no deity worthy of worship except One Supreme God.
Cheers!

[~ABR~]

(Original post by gemgems89)
We are told not to write G-d's name in vain and by using the dash instead of the "o" it means if the name gets destroyed by accident/on purpose then it won't be violating that commandment. It doesn't necessarily apply online because you can't really destroy it but it seems tradition to do so anyway. It mainly applies to on paper.

We have something similar with the name "Allah" in Arabic, it's not that we can't write it but we can't destroy something which has the name "Allah" on it, to get around that we first have to erase it or separate letters from each other.

Um.... is that going off-topic?

Oh yeah and is it O.K. here if I put verses of the Qur'an to shown what Muslims believe about Moses and tribe of Israel... or should I do that in "Ask A Muslim" instead?

[cheesecakebobby]

(Original post by NathanL)
Yeh, Resurrection kinda makes a man convincing

Surely you know that some of the 'false messiahs' supposedly rose from the dead as well? And were immaculately concepted? And died on the cross?

[NathanL]

If your faith is such that you believe it occurred.

Or the history is such that we can identify it as the motivation behind early Christian messianic labels

[Agent Smith]

(Original post by o0MorseyMan0o)
We have something similar with the name "Allah" in Arabic, it's not that we can't write it but we can't destroy something which has the name "Allah" on it, to get around that we first have to erase it or separate letters from each other.

Um.... is that going off-topic?

Oh yeah and is it O.K. here if I put verses of the Qur'an to shown what Muslims believe about Moses and tribe of Israel... or should I do that in "Ask A Muslim" instead?

Depends what the question is. If you want to offer a Muslim perspective here I suppose that's OK, but please do try not to take over too much of the thread. If someone asks you what Muslims believe about the Israelites and Moses, then that's clearly "Ask a Muslim" material.

[NathanL]

Surely you know that some of the 'false messiahs' supposedly rose from the dead as well? And were immaculately concepted? And died on the cross?

Died on the cross, yes. Resurrected within Jewish eschatology, no they weren't. Immaculately conceived refers to Mary's sinlessness, but I won't be pernickety, I know what you mean - miraculous births maybe, technical, incarnational virgin birth, no.

Although please cite them if you know them?

[Helzerel]

(Original post by Justintabib)
Hmmm ... interesting. So you saying God spoke to the entire population about the first 2 commandments at the time of Moses PBUH?
And on what basis do you claim that? Like any verse from Torah or is it a historical thing?

But undoubtedly, the first two commandments form the most integral part of all three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Talking about common terms between you and the rest -- Say there is no deity worthy of worship except One Supreme God.
Cheers!

Actual verse from the Torah. Exodus, Chapter 20, Verse 1.
''And G-d spoke all these words saying...*insert the 10commandments* ''
Then, in Verse 16 it states ''and they [the people] said to Moses: You speak with us and we will listen, but let not G-d speak to us lest we die.''

Nowt to do with the first two commandments being 'more important.' But yes, the three main monotheistic religions are Judaism, Christinity and Islams. Furthermore, they all worship the same G-d albeit through differing methods/with differing names.

[Invocation]

^Why does God talk in 3rd person ?

[Justintabib]

(Original post by Helzerel)
Actual verse from the Torah. Exodus, Chapter 20, Verse 1.
''And G-d spoke all these words saying...*insert the 10commandments* ''
Then, in Verse 16 it states ''and they [the people] said to Moses: You speak with us and we will listen, but let not G-d speak to us lest we die.''

You know it's very hard to track and research the actual Torah that you believe bcause of the dominating nature of Christian Bible.
Anyway, the people did not actually climb Mount Sinai, did they (exodus 19:20-25)? It was Moses PBUH that God spoke to and he delivered the message by going down to them.

So in 20:1 we see Moses PBUH deivering the message:
God spoke all these words .....

The conveying continues till 20:14. In 20:15 people saw the sounds, the flames. I assume some people out of their curiosity tried to climb Sinai.
Then as in 20:16 we find people saying to Moses:
You speak to us ... if He does.

Now according to many, this is in chronological order, and they asked Moses after the giving of the Ten Commandments (Mekhilta; Rashbam; Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, on Exodus 20:15). Others say that this was before the Ten Commandments (Ramban). According to others, the people said this to Moses after the Second Commandment, and the rest were given through Moses (Chizzkuni; Exodus 20:7).

So you actually fall into the last of the three groups who believe that God stopped speaking to people after first two Commandments.

But I doubt the first and last group. The people were unworthy of listening to God Almighty directly. And God brought Moses above his people by speaking to him -- he was made worthy. Ramban seems to make more sense than others in this regard.
It is better to say God gave the ten commandments to the people through Moses.Nothing exaggerating.

[Justintabib]

(Original post by Invocation)
^Why does God talk in 3rd person ?

Because Moses PBUH delivered the message of God in this context.

[gemgems89]

(Original post by Invocation)
2nd part.

There is an answer to this but I've forgotten it - I'll get back to you.

(Original post by MorseyMan)
We have something similar with the name "Allah" in Arabic, it's not that we can't write it but we can't destroy something which has the name "Allah" on it, to get around that we first have to erase it or separate letters from each other.

Um.... is that going off-topic?

Oh yeah and is it O.K. here if I put verses of the Qur'an to shown what Muslims believe about Moses and tribe of Israel... or should I do that in "Ask A Muslim" instead?

I think these kind of things would fit in pretty well in the Interfaith thread - see sig.

[Helzerel]

ARGH - Justinabib...I just wrote out a whole long answer for you..and accidentally deleted it before posting.
I'll do it again for you now.

[Helzerel]

(Original post by justintabib)
You know it's very hard to track and research the actual Torah that you believe bcause of the dominating nature of Christian Bible.

*throws hands in air*
Hey! Nothing to do with me mate! They're the largest religion in the world - not surprising they've more stuff on the web!

Anyway, the people did not actually climb Mount Sinai, did they (exodus 19:20-25)?

I never implied that they did so don't see where you're coming from.

In 20:15 people saw the sounds, the flames. I assume some people out of their curiosity tried to climb Sinai.

Deliberately taking this out of the main thing as this is a seperate point.

They didn't. They'd been warned on two separate occasions not to - see 19.12 and also 19.21-24.
The smoke and flames in 20.15 - see the description of Mount Sinai in 19.16-19.

It was Moses PBUH that God spoke to and he delivered the message by going down to them.

So in 20:1 we see Moses PBUH deivering the message:
God spoke all these words .....

The conveying continues till 20:14.

You're mixing up two entirely different incidents - don't worry - it's a fairly easy mistake to make if you're not familiar with the text.

The message as described in your first sentence refers to 19.21-24. Hence verse 25 it states 'Moses descended to the people and said to them.'

Now, I assume you have a text in front of you - if not you'll need to look one up on the 'net coz I'm not able to reproduce it here. Hebrew-English translations of the Torah (google that and not just 'bible') are easy to find.
In between Chapters 19 and 20 there is a large gap/a hebrew letter looking similar to 'O' - this depicts the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next. Hence, here, the events in Chapters 19 and 20 are entirely separate - and in your post you combined them as one.



*am just replying to the second half of your post*

[Helzerel]

(Original post by Justintabib)
Then as in 20:16 we find people saying to Moses:
You speak to us ... if He does.

Now according to many, this is in chronological order, and they asked Moses after the giving of the Ten Commandments (Mekhilta; Rashbam; Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, on Exodus 20:15). Others say that this was before the Ten Commandments (Ramban). According to others, the people said this to Moses after the Second Commandment, and the rest were given through Moses (Chizzkuni; Exodus 20:7).

So you actually fall into the last of the three groups who believe that God stopped speaking to people after first two Commandments.

But I doubt the first and last group. The people were unworthy of listening to God Almighty directly. And God brought Moses above his people by speaking to him -- he was made worthy. Ramban seems to make more sense than others in this regard.
It is better to say God gave the ten commandments to the people through Moses.Nothing exaggerating.

Not quite. Argh this is so complicated to explain.

Look in Deutronomy 5:4 where Moses, in his farewell speech to the Children of Israel again describes Mt.Sinai and the verse states:
''Face to face did G-d speak with you on the mountain, from admidst the fire.''
Further on in 5.19-28 ''These words (the 10 commandments) G-d spoke to your entire congregation..'' (V.19)
''We have heard His voice..this day we saw that G-d will speak to a person and he can live.'' (V.21) - in here, the elders are talking to Moses at Mt.Sinai - then, if you look more into the text, it narrates that they asked Moses to speak to G-d and then relate back to them what he sais because G-d's greatness was too much for them to bear. G-d heard what they said, all was jolly, the Children of Israel returned to their tents and G-d told Moses everything else.
That's the actual etxt as stated in the Torah and thus all commentators (i.e. your whole list plus many more are all in agreement with the above).

***
Look again at your text and in particular, the phraseology of the first two commandments - in the 1st person. The rest are in the 3rd person. (Invocation..is this what you're talking about?) - hence the source for the commentators that say G-d spoke the first two only to the people (also inc. Rambam and Onkelos - you didn't quote them)

****

Now -Look again at your text and in particular, the phraseology of the first two commandments - in the 1st person. The rest are in the 3rd person. (Invocation..is this what you're talking about?) - hence the source for the commentators that say G-d spoke the first two only to the people (also inc. Rambam and Onkelos - you didn't quote them).
Ramban states that Onkelos writes that the people heard the first two commandments, although, as they were not as holy as Moses they did not comprehend it on the same level.

****

OK. Now, whether the people understood all 10/first 2/none of the commandments for what they were is what is being debated by the commentators. However, there is no dispute amongst any of them that G-d did not speak in front of all 600,000people as I have explained above.

Hope you understand that - took me an awfully long time to type out!

[gemgems89]

If you want a non-Christian version of the Bible then check out http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0.htm or invest in an Artscroll Tanakh which is a lot more modern and cuts out the "thy" "thee" "thou" etc etc.

[Justintabib]

Ok. You people gave me a lot to study! I will be back after I am done with them and my ongoing exams
Thanks for your response. I appreciate and acknowledge that Judaism makes more sense to me than Christianity in terms of things relating to God.

But you people make it kinda secret-looking.
Have fun