My 1st study "Origin of christianity,NT quoutations of the OT is the key"

[Egyptian]

It is pretty shocking to me that supposed Muslims are so ignorant of what the Qu'ran says.  To deny the Virgin Birth of Christ is anti-Islam.

were did I deny the virgin birth of Christ? plz quote me....

given that this is what the Qu'ran teaches concerning the birth of Christ, what is the reason for the strenuous argumentation against the prophecy given in Isaiah 7:14

The Quran affirms the virgin birth of Christ (an item that both muslims and Christians take on their faith on the quran and bible) ,yet ,unlike the writer(s) of Matthew etc ., the Quran doesn't claim, that such miraculous birth was foretold in the old testament ...

you ask what is the problem with the quotation of Matthew? The answer is quite clear ,and if you read my previous posts carefully, you would find out ,how disastrous the problem with the writers of the new testament quotations of the old testament ...

what if a man quotes from a text ,that he considers sacred,  a passage claiming it a messianic prophecy while it is clearly isn't ,and then write about a fulfillment that neither obviously a fulfillment nor can be verified ...... all that about the figure that is foundation of the whole religion he held...... that would shake the foundations of  their theologies ...  in a word ,Christianity stands or fall on the the truthfulness of the NT writers .... and they proved themselves unworthy of trust ,basically for their gross misuse of the old testament....

Mr laloumen , the importance of the topic,is that it  shakes the very foundation of your religion.................... plz read well my previous and next posts...

What is the ground of such an assertion - that "Psalm is not a prophecy" other than merely assertion for the sake of winning an argument?  .

Now you shift to another passage in psalms !!

I have explained my reasons to question the Isaiah passage , I hope that would get you again to the point and answer my question..... How could Jesus be a fulfillment to Isaiah 7:9?

I don't mean to force you into answering me..... just let me know ,if you are not interested to discuss the so called virgin birth prophecy ,and then, I promise you ,to discuss immediately the so called psalm's resurrection prophecy...fair?


Have a good day

[Egyptian]

peace

Now a time getting back to our issue ,and exposing more and more , the place where the theologies and beliefs of the founders of christianity came from .....

After misquoting Isaiah 7 ,the zealous writer of Matthew misapplied other passages !!  he wrote:

Matthew 2:1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.5 So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: 6 ‘ But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.’”[/i]

Matthew quotes an old testament passage Micah 5:2:

the context of the passage:

Micah 4:11 But now many nations are gathered against you.They say, “Let her be defiled, let our eyes gloat over Zion!”12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD;they do not understand his plan, that he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.13 “Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion, for I will give you horns of iron;I will give you hooves of bronze, and you will break to pieces many nations.”You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth. 1 Marshal your troops now, city of troops, for a siege is laid against us.They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod. 2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah,out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,whose origins are from of old,from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. 5 And he will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land and march through our fortresses.We will raise against them seven shepherds, even eight commanders,6 who will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword.He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land and march across our borders.


First: In the context of the passage in which Micah made this statement, he was speaking of "many nations [that] have gathered against you [Israel]" (4:11). In particular, there seemed to be concern about "the Assyrian com[ing] into our land" (5:5), so it makes good sense to assume that Micah, rather than predicting the coming in the distant future, was talking about a "ruler" who would arise to help Israel during the present threat to its national security,someone arising to lead Israel through its present crisis.

Second: Even if we assume that Micah did intend this to be a prophecy of a distant future ,the fact that the predicted figure will not be one ordinary Bethlehemian but must be a "ruler in Israel" who would protect Israel from military threats,according to the text.... something Jesus never fulfilled....

Third: The christian response to that is to argue for a second coming fulfillment:
eg;
Mal Couch wrote in his Dictionary of Premillennial Theology :
This will occur at the Second Coming and in the Millennium.This same Ruler will destroy Israel's military armament and fortifications so they are not dependent on them and also cut off all false worship (5: I0-14). He will also rule the nations and pour out His vengeance on them as He rules with an iron scepter This will occur during the millennial .
before we show the trouble with such argument ,let's read the next point...

Fourth: you remember the linguestic argument of Almah vs Bethula in the previous passage of Isaiah 7? here again another similar linguestic argument ?
some christians (not all) would use linguestic argument from the passage to support the concept of Messiah'e pre-existence ,deity .....
It is verse 5:2-3 most translations translated it correctly eg:

(New International version)
out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,whose origins are from of old,from ancient times.

Common English Bible
His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.

(Contemporary English Version)
But the LORD will choose one of your people to rule the nation--someone whose family
goes back to ancient times

(English Standard Version)
from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel,whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

(GOD’S WORD Translation)
from you Israel’s future ruler will come for me. His origins go back to the distant past, to days long ago.

(Good News Translation)
out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times.

(The Message)
From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule Israel.He'll be no upstart, no pretender. His family tree is ancient and distinguished.

(New Century Version)
will come one who will rule Israel for me.He comes from very old times,from days long ago."

(Young's Literal Translation)
And thou, Beth-Lehem Ephratah, Little to be among the chiefs of Judah! From thee to Me he cometh forth -- to be ruler in Israel, And his comings forth [are] of old, From the days of antiquity.


some translations would translate (ancient times,days of old) as everlasting

eg;

whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. KJV
whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. ASV
those biased translations try to suppose the origin of the messiah as from everlasting

Professor Uri Yosef (Ph.D. and M.B.A.) notes:

The KJV correctly translates this expression in five out of the six cases as “days of old”, which is synonymous with “ancient days”, but at Micah 5:2 the KJV renders it as “from everlasting”.What could have motivated the KJV translators to change the translation at Micah 5:2, which speaks of the Messiah? A likely answer is that, by substituting “from everlasting” for “from ancient days”, the KJV translators attempted to bring this "Old Testament" prophecy into “harmony” with the accounts in the New Testament and with Christian theology. Could this be another example of "pious fraud" committed by some Christian authors?


Fifth - Just as the( Almah,bethula controversy) , the( days of old ,everlasting) controversy is not useful as well !

As even if we accept the (everlasting) rendering, even if we understand Micah description of the messiah as divine,pre-existent remains the problem : If we accept the idea of Micah's reference to a divinity of the messiah,we then have three elements:

A- the messiah will be born through the clan of Bethlehem Ephrathah..
B- the messiah will protect Israel from military threats and rules as a king.
C- he is of divine origin.
we have 2 physical aspect and 1 metaphysical ...If the second one is not fulfilled yet ,then we are left with the first and the third ...we have hundreds of thousands who were born through Bethlehem Ephrathah ,so nothing exclusive here for Jesus (assuming his birth was so,which is against what the quran says regarding his birth place,details later)......

what would be proper to be called exclusive, is the second element ,which is absent yet...
which will lead us to the conclusion:believe in Jesus as the messiah king cause he was born in Bethlehem ...believe in Jesus as God cause he was born in Bethlehem ......
and that leads us back to the Question :How could you buy a Metaphysical concept if not supported by the physical ... how could you buy the God Jesus ,before you buy the Messiah Jesus ...

If the biblical record can be proved fallible in areas of fact that can be verified(whether Jesus was the promised king messiah or not), then it is hardly to be trusted in areas where it cannot be tested (the claim of divinity).
such passage (and all the messianic passages alike) needs unconditional faith to be accepted ...

[Egyptian]

Related point :  Jesus ,his birth place ,according to the Qur'an ,and lessons from that?

Mary was brought up in Jerusalem ,was placed under the care of the prophet Zechariah, who used to live in Jerusalem ,She conceived and moved to a shelter on a lofty ground having meadows and springs, a place far away from Jerusalem to be away from her people in such embarrassing situation and gave birth to the child in the wilderness far away from Jerusalem ....

What does that mean?

1- Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem but in the wildrness far away from Jerusalem..
2- Joseph is simply a fictional character been inserted in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Which necessarily requires the following to be inventions as well:
3- the story of Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Joseph's ancestral home in Bethlehem to register in the census of Quirinius and then Mary gives birth to Jesus there .

4- Herod's intent to kill Jesus , An angel tells Joseph to flee with his family to Egypt. Meanwhile, Herod orders that all male children of Bethlehem under the age of two be killed, in the so-called "Massacre of the Innocents" and the return of Jesus from Egypt .

such Quranic attitude agress with the New testament critics who believe that the origin of most of those narratives based on all manner of creative activity by using Old Testament prophecy .

Joseph?

"Some interesting work has been done on Matthew's use of Scripture as the background to his infancy narrative. First, we may ask: is the shadowy figure of Joseph in the birth stories so named because this accords with history or for the sake of an Old Testament model (Genesis 37-50)? The name of the New Testament Joseph has often been seen as chosen for the guardian of the holy family after the model of the patriarchal joseph, who also went down to Egypt and looked after the members of his family. It is also relevant that Joseph of the New Testament was, like the Joseph of the Old Testament, a man of dreams." Andries van Aarde applies the figure of Joseph rather differently. ln a preliminary article in 2000, followed by a book in 2001, he suggests that the Joseph of the infancy stories is no more than an ethical paradigm: “To me it seems joseph was a legend. " New Perspectives on the Nativity By Jeremy Corley


The birth in Bethlehem ?

"That Jesus was son of David is a principal message of Matthew's first chapter, with its great drum-roll of Israelite history and its story of the divinely inspired adoption of Jesus into the House of David. In this case theology will have shaped quasi-history, or (to put the matter more clearly) the theological truth that jesns was the fulfillment of the promises to David and his lineage was expressed by the placing of_]esus' birth at Bethlehem. Each of the two evangelists will have used this location and decorated it in his own way, expressing in a picturesque narrative form some aspects of the theological truth about jesus that seemed to him important. "
New Perspectives on the Nativity By Jeremy Corley

- “Bethlehem was not Jesus’ birthplace but was imported from Hebrew prophecies about the future Messiah; the Star had similar origins (Numbers 24:17). Matthew’s story is a construction from well-known messianic prophecies (Bethlehem; the Star), and the Wise Men (Magi) have been added as another legend.” “Where the truth had been lost, stories filled the gap, and the desire to know fabricated its own tradition."

-“After (the crucifixion )and the belief in the resurrection, people wondered all the more deeply about Jesus’ birthplace. Bethlehem, home of King David, was a natural choice for the new messiah. There was even a prophecy in support of the claim which the ‘little town’ has maintained so profitably to this day.” So, “a higher truth was served by an impossible fiction.” [The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible(Knopf, 1992), p. 31-32].


“Luke’s real source for the view that Jesus was born in Bethlehem was almost certainly the conviction that Jesus fulfilled a hope that someday a descendant of David would arise to save Israel,” because the Messiah was supposed to come from there (Micah 5:2). [E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (p. 87.)].
...

To note, the Quranic attitude is not that radical supposing that ALL the birth narratives to be fabricated ..... eg; according to the Quran, Zachariah is a real person ,besides John the baptist ,besides the issue of the virgin birth ....  that agrees with some new testament critics who suggest that some of the narratives perhaps go back to a historical core while supposing also that the rest of the narratives were invented by either Matt or Luke, or both.

To conclude :

If we ask Did the writers of the New testament make up fictional details about the birth of Jesus (and the rest of his mission) to make it appear that he had fulfilled passages that they thought to be prophecies or they tried all the way to find references in the old testament to the traditions they received regarding the life of Jesus ?


The answer from a Quranic point of view ,and lots of new testament critics ,is that they did BOTH ......

[RamziBinNabil]

What is NT and OT?

[Final Overture]

What is NT and OT?

New Testament and Old one

[Egyptian]

thank you Bro Final Overture for the note .....

the birth narratives will be concluded in the following post inshallah soon...

[RamziBinNabil]

May Allah, the Most Glorified and Exalted, bless you and make you enter the highest Paradise with the Prophet (may Almighty Allah bless him and grant him peace).

[Egyptian]

May Allah bless you bro Ramzi ,Ameen....


I posted the following post days ago ,but it seems there was an error in the site that is why I don't find it .....  now I repost it with much additions .....

...............................................

we are still putting the writers of the new testament under trial ,examining the most important aspect of their writings " their misuse of the old testament " to get clues of their intentions and the origin of their deviant thoughts .....
we began examining the writer (Matthew) who used the old testament more than the other writers of the gospels.... 
actually ,the writer of Matthew ,from the very beginning of his writing ,in one hand, began importing ideas from the old testament to be included into his gospel ...... on the other hand he ransacked the Old Testament seeking verses which could make a meaning for the traditions he received regarding Jesus ....

First : He imported the so called genology of Jesus from the old testament:

Christopher B. Sanford ,wrote in his interesting book ; "Matthew: Christian Rabbi"

SYMBOLISM OF THE GENEALOGY

Compare this genealogy with the one in Luke starting at 3:23.
(The comparison is more difficult because Matthew starts with Abraham and counts down to Jesus, while Luke starts with Jesus and counts back, through Abraham, all the way back to Adam and then God.) Have one person start reading Luke forward (from 3:23) while another person checks off the names starting at the end of Matthew's genealogy (1:16). How do they differ?

Discussion:

Luke has, instead of the forty-two generations of Matthew, fifty-six generations to get back to Abraham. Matthew and Luke agree from Abraham down to David, but from David down to Jesus they disagree completely: They have a different number of names, and all the names are different. Each selected names for symbolic reasons Confronted with this double genealogy, some believers in Biblical inerrancy have argued that one of these genealogies is Mary's, not Joseph's. But this is not what the gospels say.
So what can we say about the two genealogies of Joseph? The possibilities are:
a-   Neither is true.
b-   one is true - but we have no way of knowing which, or
c-     it didn't matter originally, but later both authors constructed genealogies (by analogy with Hebrew Bible antecedents) because there was pressure later to specify Jesus' family connections, as well as to prove his connection to Jewish history.
But do we, in the twentieth century, care? It’s hard to see why we would or should - these are only lists of names, of men about whom we know nothing -- absolutely nothing (at least for the more recent generations) -- about personality or dates or occupation or beliefs or even place of residence.
Having challenged the historical validity of this genealogy, let us now look deeper to discern Matthew’s purpose and intention:

Table 1: Sources of Matthew's (Genealogy)

1-   Abraham: I Chronicles 1:34
2-   Isaac: I Chronicles' 1:34
3-   Israel: / Citron 1:34 (was Jacob-see Gen.35:I0)
4-   Judah: / Chronicles 2:1
5-   Pcrcz: / Chronicles 2:4
6-   I Ic/ron: / Chronicles 2:5
7-   Ram: / Chronicles 2:9
8      Amminadab: / Chronicles 2:10
9.   Nahshon: I Chronicles 2:10
10.   Salmon: or “Salma" I Chronicles 2:10
11.   Boaz: I Chronicles 2:11, 12
12.   Obcd I Chronicles 2:12
13.   Jesse: / Chronicles 2:11.12
14.   David the king: / Chronicles 2:¡3-1 S.
15.   Solomon: / Chronicles 3:5.
16.   Rchoboam: I Chronicles 3:10.
17.   Abijah: / Chronicles 3:10
18.   Asaph: or "Asa": I Chronicles 3:10
19.   Jehosaphat: I Chronicles 3:10
20.   Joram: / Chronicles 3: /1
21.   IJzziah: or “Ahaziah”: I Chronicles 3:11 Omitted: .loash: I Chronicles 3:11
        Amaziah: I Chronicles 3:12 Azariah: I Chronicles 3:12
22.   Jotham: I Chronicles 3:12
23.   Ahaz: I Chronicles 3:13
24.   Ilc/.ekiah: I Chronicles 3:13
25.   Manasseh: I Chronicles 3:13
26.   Amos: or "Anion": I Chronicles 3:14
27.   Josiah: I Chronicles 3:14-15
28.   Jechoniah: I Chronicles 3:16-17
29.   Salathiel: / Chronicles 3:17.
30.   Zerubbabel: I Chronicles 3:19
31.   Abiud: /  I Chronicles 3:19 names several sons of Zerubbabel, of whom Abiud is not one.
32.   Kliakim: the name "Eliakim " appears in Isaiah 22:20.
33.   Azor: Possibly a shortened form of Azariah. / Chronicles 6:36(21).
34.   Zadok: Zadok is the highest of priestly names. Found in I Chronicles 6:38(50).
35.   Achim: Possibly shortened form of Ahimaaz, / Chronicles 6:38(50).
36.   1:1 mil: Greek transliteration of "El-Jud." "God of Judah."
37.   Eleazar Another high priestly name. / Chronicles 6:38(50)
38.   Mat than: Possibly shortened form of Mattathias. Maccabean founder of priesthood
39.   Jacob: early patriarch appearing in Genesis 25-35: father of an earlier Joseph.
40.   Joseph the husband of Mary,
41.   Jesus, who is called Christ.

Second: He quoted Isaiah 7 ,to claim that the virgin birth of Jesus was prophecised . "we explained before the problems with his claims".


Third: The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. the writer then claimed that it was a fulfilment of an old testament  prophecy... "we explained before the problems with his claims".

Fourth The writer claimed that ,an angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I tell thee: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him,And he arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt; 2:15and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt did I call my son.

Christopher B. Sanford Notes:
Do you see parallels with the story of Moses? Read Exodus 1:21-2:22. Compare Jesus' going up on the mountain in Matthew 5 (and talking about aspects of the Law) with Moses going to Mount Sinai in Exodus 19; and Jesus' ten miracles in Matthew 8-9 with the ten plagues Moses inflicts on the Egyptians in Exodus 7-10. Do you "buy" the idea that Matthew is trying to create a parallel between Moses and Jesus?
2) In verse 15. Matthew quotes the prophet Hosea (11:1), who says, "When Israel was a child 1 loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt." Read several verses preceding and following this one in order to determine the context and significance. Is it a prophecy about Jesus?

Discussion:
A favorite theme of Renaissance painters was the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt. You have certainly seen paintings of the three resting on their fearful journey, the young Mary and the aged Joseph looking exhausted, the baby Jesus with a halo around his head, their faithful donkey waiting patiently for them to gather their strength and plod on a few more miles. But there is no indication anywhere else in the Bible - or anywhere else - that Mary and Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt. And Luke explicitly says that eight days after the birth of Jesus, the family made an offering at the Temple in Jerusalem and then made an uneventful return to Nazareth. The story seems to be there, first, to provide a fulfillment for the (non-)prophecy from Hosea (see below), and. second, to create a parallel with the story of Moses. Matthew seems at pains to create events in Jesus' life which will present him as a second Moses. There are enough of these to give support to the theory that this is what Matthew is trying to do - but the parallels are inexact enough that you can, if you prefer, reject the theory.
This quote from Hosea is part of an extended narration by Jalnveh of the relationship between the loving Jahweh and His errant people Israel. "My son" in this : Out of Egypt I have called my son. in this verse is clearly the Hebrew people, and the verse is clearly about history, not about prophecy. Hosea is saying that while the Hebrews were in Egypt, God chose them and therefore led them ("called him") out of Egypt This appears to be yet another example of "mining” the Hebrew Bible for verses which can be taken out of context and used as prophecies.

Fifth  :

The writer claims that Herod massacres children around Bethlehem :

Matthew 2:16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise-men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the male children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had exactly learned of the Wise-men. 2:17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 2:18A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she would not be comforted, because they are not.


Herod was indeed a cruel ruler, but there is no evidence - from fairly extensive and detailed Roman records - that the massacre of the innocents ever took place. Matthew seems to have created this story to explain the flight to Egypt, which explains leaving Bethlehem, which explains the resettlement to Nazareth, and to create another parallel with the story of Moses.(remember the story of Pharaoh commanded all his people, to kill every son that is born to the Hebrews ?)