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I want to share with you a Jewish Scripture which I have found to apply to the majority of Christian teachings as found in the New Testament as I have researched them the past fifteen years.
The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.
Often times when you hear your Pastor or another teach or preach about a Christian teaching coming from such Jewish passages as Isaiah 53 or Isaiah 9 it sounds very plausible and as it could be right. What I found, which I was not looking for in my studies but stumbled onto accidentally, is that when you really look closely at many Christian teachings from the New Testament that the Christian teaching does not really hold up as true when compared to the facts which testify otherwise.
In other words we as Christians and followers of Yeshua have taken without question much of the New Testament which we would have been better off researching for ourselves instead of believing without verification. I understand that not everything can be verified and much of the Bible has to be taken on faith, but I am referring to evidence and facts which, when evaluated, disprove what the New Testament writers put in the New Testament in various places. Not all of the New Testament, by any means, is wrong. But when a teaching within the New Testament is wrong, or can be shown to be in error, then it is for us to find the courage and the integrity before God to admit such and not live our lives patterning ourselves by it. It is to these issues, Christian beliefs accepted by faith which can be shown by facts to be incorrect, that I wish to address in this article. This issue for this article involves the Bethlehem issue and the birth of Messiah. Let us look at the original prophecy in detail.
The passage definitely says that out of Bethlehem will come one who will rule in Israel. The ruler of Israel will come from Bethlehem. Christians teach that the passage says that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem.
Answer for yourself: Did you see any reference to the Messiah or that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem in the above quotation of Micah 5:2-6? No you do not unless you want to read such a concept into the verse. Reading our preformed theology into verses guarantees that we arrive at the wrong meanings of the text. Keep reading.
You know what they say about "assumptions." Well, I won't go into that. Christians, by reading the concept of the Messiah into this selection of verses, teach that this Messiah is “from old and ancient days”. Christians assume and claim that “from old and ancient days” mean he has an eternal beginning. Christians believe that the Messiah’s origins go back to eternity according to Micah 5:2-6. Christians further make the assumption that since the Messiah’s origins go back to infinity in time then this passage has to be speaking about God as well. Christians make the next assumption that since it is referring to God then the Messiah is God and since Yeshua is their Messiah then Yeshua is God. Christians have half right and half wrong in such reasoning. This is circular reasoning that is tragically wrong.
If you consult Jewish commentaries for yourself you will see that it is not unreasonable to believe that this passage is speaking about the Messiah and many Jewish commentaries will teach the same that this passage is speaking about the Messiah. Christians have this part correct since the passage refers to the fact that the lineage that produces the Messiah comes from here, but not necessarily the Messiah himself. This is an important distinction.
Answer for yourself: Is this passage teaching us that the ruler who will come to Israel is an eternal being? No not at all as you will see.
Answer for yourself: Does the expression “from old and ancient day” mean that that person has an origin going back to eternity? No not at all as you will see.
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that other passages in the Jewish Bible use this same type of expression and always the meaning is other than eternal? Let us examine to see for ourselves.
Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? Her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
It is hard to imagine that the “physical city” has existed from eternity.
Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
Here the prophet is speaking of the restoration of sacrifices in the Millennium. This has no connotation of eternity as it is only speaking of the restoration of sacrifices as in the days of old (referring not to eternity before the creation of the world). This is not going back infinitely in time.
Feed your people with your rod, the flock of your heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
Again the passage is clearly not going back infinitely.
And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants; and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, says the Lord.
Clearly this is a prophecy concerning Jerusalem and clearly not going back infinitely in time.
In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in days of old.
Again a reference to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem which was built only about 400 years before it was destroyed. Clearly there is not reference to an infinite amount of time.
You will perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
Again Abraham and Isaac are not infinitely old and does not go back before the creation of the world.
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord: awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not in that has cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Are you not it which has dried the sea, the waters of the great depths of the say a way for the ransomed to pass over?
Therefore the Hebrew expression “days of old” never meant in the Hebrew Bible a time period before creation!
It is saying either of 2 things:
It is not saying that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, but from someone born in Bethlehem…..”you”….. from “David” will come one who will be the Messiah. This is not a prophecy predicting the city from where the Messiah will come but rather the lineage of the Messiah
And the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.
David was the first Jewish King of the Messianic line. Bethlehem will be the city of origin of the first Jewish King and David is the progenitor of all future kings. So Micah is not saying that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem, but from one who came from Bethlehem….namely….King David.
Micah 5:2 “who are one of the little clans of Judah”…
It is not referring to a city so much as a clan who comes out of the city. Who expected Jessie’s smallest and youngest son to be King? His clan was not expected to produce royalty because they were just shepherds (a mistrusted and detested profession). Though not expected the Messiah will come from such a clan anyway.
It is surprising that the Messiah will come from the line of David because David came from the lineage of Ruth (a Moabite). The Oral Law allowed a Jew to marry a female Moabite. From a Jewish point of view Ruth was able to marry into the Jewish people. David’s entire genealogy is suspect. The origins of the Messiah are humble.
Micah 5:3
therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.
This is an illusion to the return of the Ten Northern Tribes which were taken captive in 733 B.C.E. by the Assyrians. There is a tradition that one of the things the Messiah will accomplish (in the book of Ezekiel) is that the Messiah will accomplish the restoration of the Ten Lost Tribes. Here is an illusion to that fact by Micah.
Answer for yourself: Did Yeshua ever do this and did the exiles from the Northern Ten Tribes which were taken into captivity by Assyria return home to Israel due to Yeshua's ministry? No.
The most can be said is that Christians are returning to their Hebrew Roots because of him, but few if any of those recovering their Hebrew roots of the Christian faith are migrating to Israel.
And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.
Answer for yourself: How can this prophecy from Micah refer to Yeshua when traditional Christian teaching believe that Yeshua is God because Micah tells us that this ruler has a God?
The person in this prophecy has a God and is not a God.
Answer for yourself: How can the ruler to come be God Himself when this passage refers to the person having a God and recognizing YHVH as his God?
But more than that the passage speaks of this ruler who will live in a time when the Jewish people will live securely and when the Ten Northern Tribes will be restored.
Answer for yourself: Yeshua did not accomplish any of this...did he? No, quite the contrary. Within 40 years of Yeshua's death Israel will be plunged into a war which will devastate the nation and leads ultimately to the was of 135 and Israel will be without a nation for almost 2000 years.
Christians are forced to yield to a possible second coming to fulfill all of this. Then this passage is useless to use this text as a proof text that Yeshua is the Messiah. Yet this is done repeatedly by Christians in attempts to win over the Jewish people. Such is wrong.
Christians claim that the Messiah has to come from Bethlehem. That may or may not be correct because the passage says that the Messiah will come from one who came from Bethlehem. Now you know the truth. Such is the fruit of Bet Emet...the Truth!
Bennoah1@verizon.net