Showing posts with label Talmud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Talmud. Show all posts

Tuesday 4 April 2017

The language of Jesus and the title of God

English: psalms in Aramaic
English: psalms in Aramaic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The last few days I had some heavy discussions with Americans who found that Allah is a demon and could not believe that Jesus would ever have used that word. Though Allah is not only used by Arabs. This word is also used in many more languages to denote the singular God. Remarkable, to notice, is that the word has no plural from, like English, where you have God, god and gods.

Jesus is not the real name of the Messiah, like lots of English speaking believe and do not want to accept the Biblical characters had not the English names they are used to.

Lots of people either do not know or do not want to know, that by the beginning of the Common Era, Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the spoken language of Palestinian Jews. The Essene Jew born in Bethlehem also was a Palestinian who spoke, like his worldly parents Aramaic.

We should remember that the causes of Hebrew’s decline could be hastened by the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C.E. and the continued foreign rule of Palestine during the Second Temple period. Though we must see and hear that there are many similarities between the two, both being a Semitic language.

Lots of people also do forget that for a long time it has been the second most important Jewish language — though it was spoken by non-Jews as well. The Talmud is written in Aramaic, as is the Zohar, the great medieval mystical text. One of the best-known Jewish prayers, the Kaddish, also is written in Aramaic. During the talmudic era, Hebrew illiteracy was so high that the Torah reading was recited along with a verse-by-verse translation into Aramaic.
We even find a conjugation of the word "Allah" when rabbi Jeshua cries unto his heavenly Father asking Him why He has abandoned him.

To the dismay of many English-speaking and Muslim haters, the world must realize that Allah is a title used by several people and even by Jesus to describe the only true God.

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Find also

A 1st reply to the 4th Question Who is God 1 A Creating Being to be worshipped

More on Aramaic and other languages spoken by Jews, like the in Belgium often heard Yiddish:

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Monday 2 May 2011

A Jewish Theocracy

According to Dr. Lawrence J. Epstein, current Jewish teaching precludes Jesus as the Messiah because it is unanimously believed that the Messiah will bring peace:
"Jesus is not seen as the messiah. In the Jewish view, the messiah is a human being who will usher in an era of peace. We can tell the messiah by looking at the world and seeing if it is at peace. From the Jewish view, this clearly did not happen when Jesus was on Earth or anytime after his death." 25.
Hyam Maccoby believed Jesus to be a rebel, but misrepresented by the gospel accounts out of fear of reprisals by Rome:
"…Jesus was executed as a rebel, against Rome, not as a blasphemer against the Jewish religion, and that the Gospel's misrepresentations on this point are politically motivated--I regard as strongly established…" 26.
Hyam Maccoby is considered a classical scholar and Rabbi of Reform Judaism, and has in recent years been director of the library at the Leo Baeck College of Judaistics in London. His books appear to present accepted ideas regarding Christ, Christianity and the New Testament and the Jewish thought. To clarify Jewish views and dispel Christian misconceptions of the Messiah, Maccoby redefined Jesus' mission:
"…The phrase 'the kingdom of God'…meant the reign of God (not His heavenly territory) and referred to a projected return to a Jewish system of theocracy…" 27.
"….He [Jesus] had campaigned among 'the lost sheep of Israel', calling them to repentance, because he felt that the coming of God's Kingdom was being held back by Israel's sin's. Pharisee writings often stress that God's promises to Israel are not automatically fulfilled; they depend on Israel's worthiness and co-operation ... " 28.
"…Jesus' mission as a prophet was exclusively directed towards the Jews, not towards the Gentiles. The idea that Jesus rejected the Jews and transferred the Old Testament 'promises' to the Gentiles was a later invention of the Gentile-Christian Church…" 29.
"… Some believed that the Messiah would inaugurate a new era for the whole world; that the nations of the world would acknowledge the One God and his Temple in Jerusalem; that the Jews would be revered as the chosen priests of the One God; and that an era of world peace would begin when, in the words of Isaiah's wonderful internationalist vision, the swords would be beaten into plowshares and the wolf would lie down with lamb. Some, however, did not believe that the coming of the Messiah would necessarily bring about an era of international peace. There might be many Messiahs - many more sorrows and comfortings, defeats and victories - for the Jewish people before that happened. After all, there had been Messiahs before and none had brought everlasting peace. The vision of Isaiah was acknowledged by every Pharisee, as the word of God but it was not necessarily attached to the expectation of the coming Messiah who would defeat the Romans." 30.
In The Traditions of the Jews, from the Talmud (treatises Baba Bathra folio 74b, Pesachim folio 32, Bekhoroth folio 57 and Massektoth Ta'anith folio 31), J.P Stehaln presents a glorious scenario of the Messianic era - without Jesus Christ as the Messiah:
"… when the Messianic era arrives. After the return of the Jews from all nations and parts of the world… the Messiah, we are told in the Talmud, will entertain them at a gorgeous banquet, where they will be seated at tables and regaled with wine from Adam's wine-cellar. The first course is to consist of a roasted ox named Behemoth, so immense that every day it eats up the grass upon a thousand hills; the second of a monstrous fish Leviathan; the third of a female Leviathan boiled and pickled; the fourth of a gigantic roast fowl known as Barjuchne, of which the egg alone was so enormous that when it fell out of the nest it crushed three hundred tall cedars and the white overflowed threescore villages. This course is to be followed up by "the most splendid and pompous Dessert," that can be procured, including fruit from the Tree of Life and "the Pomegranates of Eden which are preserved for the Just."
"At the end of the banquet "God will entertain the company at a ball"; He Himself will sit in the midst of them, and everyone will point Him out with his finger, saying: "Behold, this is our God: we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation." 31.