Sixth Response to Dalton Lifsey – Persuasion vs. Education Part III
Dalton
Thank you for proving my original point.
It was YOU who asked that this discussion be moved to the text.
Please stick to your own guidelines for this conversation.
As for your most recent diatribe – You could read my blog, you could read the articles I put up on the Jews for Judaism website and you will find that I have already demonstrated the emptiness of your position.
My aim in this blog is to bring clarity to this discussion. I thank you for your help in disseminating God’s truth.
Yisroel
If you found this article helpful please consider making a donation to Judaism Resources by clicking on the link below.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=FEAQ55Y7MR3E6
Judaism Resources is a recognized 501(c) 3 public charity and your donation is tax exempt.
Thank You
Yisroel C. Blumenthal
1000 Verses - a project of Judaism Resources 
I just read his post. Accusations of blindness, lust, ignorance- but no evidence that Isaiah’s child in chapter 9 must be Jesus. The post here from earlier this week surveying scholarship on Isaiah chapter 9 was interesting; nothing really surprising but it does help to know.
Dalton- You are missing one HUGE flaw in your theology. Namely, that Jesus BECAME a hypostatic union. Prior to the incarnation, Christians teach the G-d existed as father,son and hs, in fleshless, triune deity, ONLY. Then….came the incarnation. Where “God” “became flesh”…”took on the form of sinful flesh”….”bodily form”
Prior to that instant…deity only….after that instant…a hypostatic union of the son. 100%god100%man.
So the son by definition BECAME bi-natured. As you yourself has noted..GodMan.
Prior to the incarnation ONE nature. After the incarnation..BI-natured.
And that further means….that by definition, since the ENTIRE godhead is in unity, “God” and the “HS” ALSO interact with the “Son” and so also interact with his humanity. As even the apologetic website CARM (a leading apologetic institution) admits.
CARM “The Bible teaches us that Jesus has two natures: God and man. This is known as the doctrine of the hypostatic union. Jesus is still both God and man, divine and human, at the same time. Jesus, as one person, exists with two natures. The divine nature “joined” with the human nature in the one person of Christ.”…”Jesus, the person, has two natures, divine and human, and the attributes of the divine nature were ascribed to the single person of Christ.”….”we can conclude that the Godhead participates in humanity through the incarnation of Christ,”
This, no matter how you slice it, spin it, word it, think about it, complain about it, it contitutes a CHANGE in G-ds nature. Before incarnation…the son existed only as G-d nature. After incarnation, “Godman” nature.
And G-ds nature DOES NOT CHANGE. ever.
Psalm 102:
25 “Of old You founded the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
26 “Even they will perish, but You endure;
And all of them will wear out like a garment;
Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.
27 “But You are the same, ….
Mal 3:6
6 “For I, the LORD, do not change;
James 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
G-d does not change, like the heavens do…G-d …in whom there is NO VARIATION or shifting shadow…G-d does not change.
Even by Christian definition, “God” changes. First existing only as triune deity, then an incarnated son and now, the son STANDS in heaven as a glorified body in heaven, sharing “god” substance. This is PLAINLY a change in “Gods” nature. And is forbidden. No getting around it.
I repeat…Before.. deity only..after..deityman. That is change. This is heresy..blasphemy.
That is a really excellent commentary.
https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/isaiah-44/
Lifsey has failed to read, appreciate and intellectually understand Deuteronomy 4.
Once you have Deuteronomy 4, anything else becomes rather insignificant
QED
Lifsey’s latest post is alsmot embarrassing. it consists of
1) He won’t address Rabbi B.’s “dodgey” teatment of Isaiah just yet. This notwithstanding the reality that, as Thomas, points out many Christian scholars acknowledge that Isaiah 9:5,6 cannot be used as a christological proof, even though Mr. Lifsey was willing to stake his faith on it when he originally raised the issue.
2) That just because Rabbi B. can’t accept the incarnation, doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. It’s just Rabb B.’s failure of imagination to grasp something as complex and difficult as “drinking the Pacific Ocean”. Oh, and lastly teh NT was written by jews, so it must be Jewish
Yep, pretty powerfull stuff.
I’m sorry to bring this up but yesterday his name was Dalton Lifsey. Now today he has changed it to Dalton Thomas. What is going on? His book says Dalton Lifsey. Bliumenthal has been writing to Lifsey. Jeeez.
His middle name is Thomas. A family name that seems important to him. Probably not dodgery, probably just logged in on a different computer or different social network site.
Both books are under different names. Today he changed his name on his websites.
Thanks, Larry. I didn’t see that part of it. Then we got a mystery. And mysteries are his & others folks religious “shtick”.
Another point that Dalton ? proved is that written debates DO come to a conclusion contrary to what some have asserted
I see a lot of use of the word “mystery” in relation to Jesus and especially to man’s hypothesis of the “godman” idea. But the godman idea is neither new nor mysterious. The godman idea only becomes mysterious when someone with limited knowledge of God tries to explain what they think they believe to themselves and to others, especially to others who have a greater revelation and knowledge of a not-man God. The most primitive of heathens could not understand the object or the power of the sun, the moon, thunder, etc., but they could understand a sun god, a moon goddess, or thunder god. They couldn’t understand “how man got here”, until they first imagined a godman power that got man here. When European believers of a man-god, first came to the Americas a liitle over 500 years, they seen people with a religion so similar to theirs, that at first they thought that the disciples of Jesus (maybe even Jesus himself!) indeed spread the “goodnews” to every corner of the earth. They just lost their “salvation” somehow and reverted back to the older paganism. Because, of the corruption of the godman idea and these natives rejected Jesus, I believe there was a theory that the “pharisees” got there 1st.
There is really no mystery about a “trinity” (ice,water,steam), until one is confronted with the idea of a One who created the first atom. The “trinity” was the milk given to spiritual babes (by an intermediary feeder) who were far from ready for sharing spiritual meat in a direct relation with God. It was no mystery that heaven had a father god, a mother god, a son god (just a short step from many son gods and many daughter goddesses. Much simpler, less mystery). To their simple minds, the supreme god was so high above pitiful, worthless humans. But the god needed to eat and so humans had to feed & appease the god. But the pagan supreme god could not become dependent on mere worthless man nor deal directly with them. So no mystery, a god has a son god who, because he needs the power of the father god, is also god, same substance, but with a different role (also a gate keeper or Logos or word). To deal with man the son god had to be a godman. But a great mystery, how? No mystery, just add a mother god. Until people grew up a bit, and seen a new mystery. This mother god was “the mother of god”, which would make her the first or supreme god. So make the mother of the man-god, a human woman. That way the godman is really a man because of the mother’s nature and truly a god because of a god father. 100% man, 100% god, just like an icon, an idol, a totem pole carved by humans but filled with spirit from a god. But a true 100%, not a con artist’s 100%, makes the wood & spirit equal and one. Else we are left with the same old free floating spirit or rotting wood & no god. All that man sees is the wood (or the gold of the calf) and that becomes what is worshipped. A godman becomes a mental representation of the god (the god is “re-created” by man into the image of man) which to a higher God, who is higher than a godman, is called idolatry, an abomination. Using Mr Lifsey’s playboy analogy, this mangod theory leads to spiritual pornography or lust. Thus, God and the prophets speak against the spiritual adulery of the Baalists, idolators, and the pagan godman ideas.
There are several other “mysteries” which are explainable. Somehow, some people feel that the more perverted the idea, the more “mysterious” their ideas are, the closer they get to God. They preach a “drunkeness” in Church so they can “whip the simple, superstitious folks into a frenzy. Notice how calm and sober they appear before a Tv or video camera. And notice how they all sound alike. They have a common lexicon. A common set of verses and a common set of commentary on those verses. No mystery. Except maybe why more of their critics don’t explain to the people what they are “really saying”. The greatest criticism is “within the house”, between “fellow believers”. If a preacher only says Jesus, listen to what they say about someone who calls Jesus only by the name Yeshua or Yahwehshua. Listen to the arguments of Yeshua believers when they speak about other Yeshua believers in a “different camp”. Often, cultists vs. cultists. No mystery there. They know where the other one is coming from.
Hmm, this is not much of a response to Dalton’s previous post. I was expecting more.
Scratch that, I see now that Dalton has a more recent post.
http://thecontroversyofzion.com/2012/02/my-sixth-response-to-yisroel-blumenthal-jewish-objections-to-jesus-our-mighty-god-and-eternal-father/
Tsvi says:
All of the arguments about El Gibbor or Avi Ad meaning that the child is to be both the mighty God and Everlasting Father are wrong and admitted in the King James Version itself. If anyone has the Cameo edition of the King James published by Cambridge look at the center column reference of Isaiah 8:1 Where we read of Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Though an extreme literalist would render it like the King James rendered Isaiah 9:6 Speed, Spoil, Haste, Prey. Yet in the center column reference it states: “Heb. (for Hebrew) In making speed to the spoil he hastens the prey” Yet the prejudice of the King James wouldn’t render Isaiah 9:6 the same way. The Jewish Publication Society renders it properly this way: Wonderful in counsel ia God the Mighty, the Everlasting Father, The Ruler of Peace. This is the proper rendering In other words Hezekiah will be the champion of what these names stand for. Just as Maher Shalal Hash Baz
The King James shows not honesty in translation but as a Christian who must hunt in our forest for stolen prey.
According to the article, and if I am understanding it correctly, isaiah thought hezekiah could have been this god-man, but when he did not achieve this peace, this prophecy could not apply to him. But jesus did not achieve it, either- so according to dalton’s own logic, since jesus is yet to fulfill these requirements, he cannot be the fulfillment of this oracle either (at least, not yet).
If that is the case, that’s special pleading- to disqualify hezekiah based on not creating peace, but using excuses to justify jesus’ failures. Sorry, but punting to a ‘second coming’ is insufficient- if jesus did not create this peace, either, then following this article’s logic, until he accomplishes that peace, these titles cannot be applied to him.
On another note, it should come as a surprise to no one that larger numbers of evangelical scholars and bible commentators have come to reject the christological interpretation of such verses, along with most other scholars. Whether they interpret 9:6 as hyberbolic or theophoric, most seem to reject the interpretation offered in the link above.