Christianity Is Not A Monotheistic Religion

[USU78]

Now, getting back to our discussion, Horatio. Just when was it that Mormons all decided to agree that God is not Infinite? It must have been after you guys took off in your wagons to the desert, I guess. But can you remember back to 1830-31-32, when all we had was the Book of Mormon and that skinny blond guy with the white hat? Back when infinity wasn't quite so unfamiliar? What happened to you people?

Somehow, somewhen ol' Peepstone got the notion in his noggin' that there ain't a dime's worth of difference between spirit and matter, between temporal and eternal. It ain't ol' Peepstone as changed the rules of the game. For the majority of human existence, folks has been quite clear that g-ds and us'n is so close that we can breed . . . it's them thinkers in Greece and such foreign places as invented an unholy and unsurmountable chasm between spirit and matter, temporal and eternal, g-ds and men.

If'n my ol' Rabbi finds such notions unfamiliar, perhaps it's on accountacuz of the hyperoxygenation on da Big Island, bra'.

USU "Still tryin' to figure out how to make my back yard blossom as the rose in my front yard" 78

[Uncle Dale]

...the hyperoxygenation on da Big Island...

Boy did you get that one right!

Who needs to smoke pot, when the air itself is ten times stronger than Maui Wowie?

Uncle "please pass the munchies and don't bogart that rainforest" Dale

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[structurecop]

ABD? My mind has gone blank; I'm not familiar with the source.

Sorry -- Anchor Bible Dictionary.

Here is the relevant section (3:492-493):

Chap 50:4-6 suggests that the prophet saw his own exilic suffering as part of the divine plan of punishment, and faithfully submitted to it, like the author of Lamentations 3. If, as seems likely, chaps. 52:13-53:12 are to be attributed to Second Isaiah, the prophet was rejected by his fellow Israelites, undergoing even a deathlike experience, if not death, before being given the great prize, a share in the holy land. A single verse, 48:16, states that "now the Lord Yahweh has sent me, endowed with his spirit." The prophet here sees himself as one who provides the interpretive word accompanying the new creation and new Exodus-Conquest.

[jwhitlock]

Sorry -- Anchor Bible Dictionary.

Here is the relevant section (3:492-493):

Chap 50:4-6 suggests that the prophet saw his own exilic suffering as part of the divine plan of punishment, and faithfully submitted to it, like the author of Lamentations 3. If, as seems likely, chaps. 52:13-53:12 are to be attributed to Second Isaiah, the prophet was rejected by his fellow Israelites, undergoing even a deathlike experience, if not death, before being given the great prize, a share in the holy land. A single verse, 48:16, states that "now the Lord Yahweh has sent me, endowed with his spirit." The prophet here sees himself as one who provides the interpretive word accompanying the new creation and new Exodus-Conquest.

I think I'd have some trouble fitting verses 5-9 in chapter 53 to Isaiah and not Christ.

[Uncle Dale]

I think I'd have some trouble fitting verses 5-9 in chapter 53 to Isaiah and not Christ.

The suffering servant and other iconic figures in Isaiah, may not refer to the actual writer(s) of

the text, but to a sort of proto-Jesus from the period of the Exile. That is, the autobiographical

oracles may be set into a matrix constructed by later disciples of the "Isaiah school."

It's hard for all of us who grew up in a Christian culture to shed our long-held views and try

look at all of this through Jewish eyes (and through eyes at the very inception of Judaism at that).

One way some theologians have approached the problem is through a layering of personalities --

that is, in a specific sense some of Isaiah refers to a person of that early time period -- but in a

predictive or prophetic sense, it also looks forward to Jesus.

Considering how profoundly affected Jesus was by Isaiah, this metaphysical identity is easily conceived.

UD