Messianic Judaism

anisavta said:

As of three years ago - the ugly white gowns rent for $10. But that also gives you access to the changing room and hot shower plus a certificate of baptism. What a deal!
I was at the Yardenit with two friends 3 yrs ago. One of them wanted to mikvah there. Not baptism mind you but cleansing, status change if you will. She had some serious relationship baggage she wanted to rid herself of so the day after Yom Kippur we went. And it was empty. No tour groups! We went to the last bay away from anyone who might show up and she in her rented gown said the mikvah blessing and dipped down three times. It was a moment of transformation for her. And then as a special dessert - all three of us got a fish pedicure by G~d.

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anisavta said:

No the fish gave us one. Quite unique and fun actually.

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anisavta said:

They nibble the dead skin from your feet. At first it tickles but then it feels kinda good.
In Asia (and I've even heard of it in the US there are salons that charge good money for the procedure.

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yonah_mishael said:

They are two different languages, but the Greeks didn't care about either one, and given that Hebrew was basically dead as a spoken language, they just called the Jewish version of Aramaic by the same name - the language spoken by the Hebrew people.

You can tell which one is referred to only when a word is transliterated (such as "Golgotha," which is Aramaic and not Hebrew). All of the place names you mentioned above are Aramaic words, not Hebrew words.

Additionally, it can be assumed that the posting above Jesus' cross was in Aramaic, not in Hebrew - so that people could read it. The people did not generally speak or read Hebrew as a fluent language.

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Lulav said:

So, by saying that the Greeks didn't care about either language, Hebrew or Aramaic, then to me, it goes to prove that the gospels (and Acts) were not written by Jews.

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ContraMundum said:

It continues to amaze me as to why people have so much trouble with being baptized by another person in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as commanded by Jesus Himself. I really do think that there is an overly vigorous pursuit of self-indulgent experience that occurs when people start inventing their own traditions, such as self-immersion, nudity, and notions that one must engage in a facade of conversion to Judaism (which it most certainly is not) to be a "real" Messianic.

All this stuff is very...well....unscriptural. I guess when the words of Jesus aren't enough people just invent their own new ways to generate emotional religious experiences.

This has turned into a very sad thread indeed.

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yedida said:

I'm sorry you feel that way.
When I first turned to Christianity, when I was 18 years old, I was of the hippie generation. I was bathed, clean clothes but a street person. My friend and I were turned out of over 1/2 dozen churches because we didn't look like the rest of the congregation. We were getting frantic over who was going to baptize us. We had read that we all were ambassadors for Christ so we figured if we were that then we could baptize each other, which we promptly did so we could be obedient.
Once I gave up the hippie life and became a "normal" person and was all at once "liked" by the churches I never felt a need to re-do my baptism. I felt very secure in what my friend and I had done in a pinch.
Then I backslid. I was left alone with a 2 year old and got my eyes off God and on how I was gonna survive.
After years of being away from the word, I returned and found Messianic Judaism. The "baptism" at that time was more of a change in life style mikveh, a turning back to God. It was not a baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
To this day, I have never felt a need to re-do my original baptism. It was done in good faith, for the right reason and with the right attitude. It took, and it kept me safe from straying so far away that I'd be lost forever.
Sometimes unconventionality is the mode to get things done.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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yonah_mishael said:

That's an odd conclusion. Greek was spoken by ALL JEWS who lived outside of Israel. It was the lingua franca of the whole world at that time. There's no reason to think that the books weren't written by Jews based solely on that.

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"Greek was spoken by ALL JEWS who lived outside of Israel"

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Lulav said:

John was a Galilean, Matthew was also. Was Greek spoken and written by Galileans also?

To make the statement that :

would defiantly debunk the Pentecost story regarding language.

If ALL JEWS who lived outside of Israel spoke Greek then there was no need for the miracle of the tongues.

But again, Matthew and John lived in Israel and to be fluent in Greek both spoken and written seems a stretch to me.

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aniello said:

Re: Baptism/Mikveh

Seems to me that Phillip baptized the Ethiopian, IIRC.

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yonah_mishael said:

I don't know what your contention is here.

All people in the known world used Greek for all forms of commerce and interaction with anyone who wasn't from their area. That doesn't mean that people didn't have their own native tongues. If a Jew grew up in some outpost of the Empire, he still earned his own native tongue based on where he grew up (like modern Jews in America grow up learning English). This doesn't mean that they didn't know the international commerce language - like people knowing English internationally today.

I made no claims about Jesus' or Matthew's literacy, but given that Matthew was supposed to have worked for the government in taxation, I'm sure that he wrote in Greek, too. I don't know if Jesus wrote Greek. I don't even know if Jesus spoke Greek. The only clear indication of his words that we have is that he spoke Aramaic. I assume that he spoke at least rudimentary Greek as well, but that's an assumption. There's no evidence for it.

What is your problem with this? It's absolutely a simple thing.

John is known to have used a stenographer. If you read the Revelation in Greek, the language is choppy and messy. It's obviously written by a non-native speaker of Greek, since anyone with a year's grammar learning can read it and point out mistake after mistake as far as syntax and agreement is concerned. The Gospel is more polished, either because John didn't write it (I can't say that for sure) or because he dictated it and someone else (his stenographer, it is stated) cleaned up and improved the language.

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Steve Petersen said:

We have only Christian tradition which assigns the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The texts themselves make no such claims.

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During the first century A.D. Hebrew remained the language of the Jews living in Judah and, to a lesser degree, in Galilee. Aramaic remained a secondary language and the language of commerce. Jews at this time DID NOT SPEAK GREEK. In fact, one tradition has it that it was better to feed one’s children swine flesh than to teach them the Greek language! That says a lot since swine flesh is forbidden by the Torah and, as a result, spurned by the Jews. And it was only with the permission of the Jewish authorities that a young government official could learn Greek, and then, solely for the purpose of political discourse on the National or International level. The Greek language was COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE AND UNDESIRABLE to the vast majority of Jews in Israel during the first century. The bottom line is that any gauge of Greek language out side of Israel cannot, nor any evidence hundreds of years removed from the first century, alter the fact that most of the Jews of Israel in the first century A.D. DID NOT KNOW GREEK.

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pat34lee said:

From this article: Hebrew and Aramaic

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Heber said:

........... the Church was not impressed as one is not meant to be Baptised more than once, they say!
................BTW you do not know me well, it seems - I do not go by tradition. The Bible sets out that Baptism can only be in the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. How it is administered is, in my opinion, open to further debate.

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