[Enlil-An]

Originally posted by volgadon
I never made the claim that they didn't have to go through Archelaus's territory. The whole point is that despite his natural fears, Joseph remembered that God commanded this and he went through the land.

Nice try, but that's not what the scripture is saying. In every instance, when Joseph learns that Archelaus is the ruler of Judea, the scripture says he was afraid to "go there" (KJV "go thither"), not that he was afraid to "travel through" and when he received a warning from the angel, the scripture clearly indicates that he changed course in going to Galilee. Many english translations say, "he withdrew" into Galilee. The KJV says he "turned aside" (essentially the same as withdrew). The Messege translation of the Bible even says, "But then Joseph was directed in a dream to go to the hills of Galilee." Why would an angel need to direct Joseph to go to a place that he was going to already?

All the indications from Matthew 2:21-23 is that Joseph was originally going back to the land of Judea (presumably home to Bethlehem) and that he only went to Galilee instead because Archelaus was the new ruler of Judea and the angel's warning. You can (and will no doubt) disagree with this assessment but this is how it sounds to me and this is how most historians interpret it as well.

So what are the odds of none of the non-English translations I consulted saying warned, but rather commanded or instructed?

What difference does it make whether Joseph was warned or commanded? The point is that he wasn't originally going to Galilee. And if you are right that Joseph was "commanded" to go there, it is only more evidence that he wasn't originally heading there in the first place.

Alright then, ammend work to worked. Which one of my statements is wrong?

Your scenarios don't contradict either other at all. But then they don't have a back story do they. I'm sure you could invent a back story and word it in such a way that it could support your position, but Matthew and Luke cannot be harmonized with one another the way they are told and worded. They are different, contradictory stories. In Matthew's gospel, the holy family travels from Bethelehem to Egypt to Nazareth. In Lukes' they travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem back to Nazareth and they journey under completely different circumstances than those laid out in Matthew. The birth stories of the two gospels can't be reconciled.

Why do you assume that my source is online?

Why must I repeat myself two and three times because you seem to skim over everything I write and only pick out portions of it to nit-pick? I gave you two options, valgadon. Either post a link to the source online or type the quote into your post. Until you do, I'm not going on anymore of your scavanger hunts just to find out what I know already - that you are wrong.

Which is part of why I didn't provide them.

If you can't provide them, then there's no point telling us you have them to begin with because you can't use them to back you up.

As I said before, your loss. If you want to make sweeping pronouncements on the veracity of the Gospels and how that impacts our LDS faith WITHOUT immersing yourself in all aspects of the topic, then that is your problem.

You're the one making sweeping announcements about the Gospels. I'm just reading them as they stand and because they don't support what you want to believe you resort to all kinds of ludicrous tactics for refuting them from challenging the accuracy of their translations to stretching the text to mean something it doesn't and even refusing to take the passages at face value trying instead to invent some alternate meaning for them. "Oh, well it was customary for the Greeks to tell histories that contradict eachother. It's part of there culture." "Well, you see, when Jews claim they don't know something, they're only pretending to be ignorant toward an idea they find repulsive." What nonsense! Can you provide any real evidence for these absurd claims or not?

I would ask you how does the author know that they had nothing to do with a messiah.

Because she read them in the context in which they were written just like I did. Something Matthew DID NOT do.

First of all, my point was that if Nephi says she was a virgin, why do you have such a hard time believing Matthew's interpretation?

You are obviously having a hard time understanding what I've typed. You need to slow down and read my posts more carefully so I don't have to keep repeating myself. Let me say it again:

I don't have a problem with Matthew saying that Jesus was born of a virgin. I have a problem with Matthew saying that Isaiah prophecied that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Nephi never claims that Isaiah prophecies of the virgin birth. Nephi makes his own prophecy of the virgin birth. My problem with Matthew isn't that he says Mary was a virgin. My problem is his interpretation that Isaiah 7:14 is a prophecy of Jesus' birth. Got it now?

The world aalmah does not exclude virginity.

"The original Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 reads as follows (translated):

"Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman [ha-almah] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanu-el".[1]
Jewish scholars reason that [ha-almah] ("young woman") does not refer to a virgin and that had the Tanakh intended to refer to such, the specific Hebrew word for virgin [bethulah] would have been used. This view is often disputed by Christians (see below), and has been a point of contention between Jews and Christians since the formation of the modern Church. Jerome, in 383 CE, wrote in "Adversus Helvidium" that Helvidius misunderstood just this same point of confusion between the Greek and the Hebrew."
Isaiah 7:14 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Secondly, read 2 Nephi 11. And yes, I do mean the whole chapter.

There is absolutely NOTHING in that chapter that supports your claim that Nephi believed Isaiah prophecied of the virgin birth of Jesus. Another wild goose chase.

Thirdly, f I can find but three latter-day prophets and apostles who support Matthew's interpretation, will that satisfy you?

No, it wouldn't. Sorry.

What do you make of 1 Nephi 11:13 and Alma 7:10?

Once again, neither of those verses support Matthew's claim that Isaiah 7:14 is a prophecy about Jesus or his virgin mother.

Some said. If there were no other traditions, then why would there be a division, it could be settled by simple appeal to the scriptures.

And you accused me of needing everything explained? There was a division because many Jews thought he was the Messiah based on all the miracles he was performing (not from some non-existant tradition that the Messiah would come from Nazareth) but the other Jews refused to believe he was the Messiah because he wasn't from Bethlehem as Micah prophecied.

Spare me the sarcasm. That is not a war you want to start.
All you need to do is track down the source. It isn't diffcult at all to do.

No. No more wild goose chases. I read 2 Nephi 11 and the other scriptures you cited because you couldn't be bothered to cut and paste them into your post. Now it's your turn to show a gesture of good faith. If you want me to read that part of Josephus that you maintain supports your point of view, post it in the thread for all of us to read. I'm not doing anymore work to search out your sources when all of them so far have been nothing but dead ends.

If you can't do this, we might need to just agree to disagree and spare ourselves any further haggling.