Jesus is not the Messiah

I appreciate my opponents well though out and concise arguments.. It is evident that at face value, his arguments seem convincing but, as we shall see, they generally hold no water. C1 : JESUS DID NOT QUALIFY TO BE THE MESSIAH My opponent opens : "However, there is a problem : Jesus was purportedly born of a virgin. When we look at Jewish law, tribal lineage comes only through the father. Secondly, when examining Mary's genealogy given in Luke, it comes from Nathan instead of Solomon. Finally, Mathew lists a king who was cursed; namely the king known as Jehoiakim. In Jeremiah 22, there was an eternal curse placed on him that no descendant of his shall ever prosper sitting on the throne." This is the core of my opponents contention. My opponent also listed five requirements that one must fulfill the be the Messiah. Requirements 1 and 2 are not disputed as Jesus easily meets them. My opponent evidently has problems with requirements 3,4 and 5, and puts forth his case in the paragraph above. Let us examine as to whether Jesus meets these disputed requirements while taking into consideration, the paragraph that my opponent presented. [3] He must be from the tribe of Judah. It is a fact that tribal lineage comes solely through the father. So what does one make of the case of Jesus? Certainly this rule cannot apply to Jesus because the rule exclusively deals with children who have a biological earthly father. Jesus, on the other hand, had no biological earthly father! ALL his genetic make-up came solely from his mother, Mary. The scripture does not directly address such an extraordinary situation. Hence it would be illogical to attempt to apply ordinary laws to an extraordinary situation! Scripture is not entirely silent on how to deal with such an issue though. Through scripture, it is still possible to determine the tribe of a child who has no earthly biological father : I begin with the simple premise that women born of a certain tribe have an affiliation of that tribe. This is confirmed by various passages in scripture such as Numbers 36. They possess this affiliation even though they are unmarried. Thus through their affiliation, all that they possess belongs to the tribe. As in the daughters of Zelophehad's situation, this includes the lands and inheritance that came to them. Such land and inheritance belonged to the tribe of Mannaseh precisely because it belonged to these women. If they betrothed someone of another tribe, the land and inheritance would go with them to that other tribe (Numbers 36:3). So too if they married within their own tribe, then the land as well inheritance and all they have would remain in their own tribe (Numbers 36:6-9). The same would be true of Mary. Before she married, all that belonged to herself would have belonged to the tribe of Judah. If she married a man from another tribe, then all that belonged to her would belong to that tribe. If she married a man from within her tribe, then she and all she had would continue to belong to the tribe of Judah. I'm sure my opponent has no problem with this so we can safely proceed. Taking into account what was said above : Since all that belonged to Mary always was of the tribe of Judah, then since Mary bore a Jesus solely by herself, by the power of the Holy Spirit of God and without any genetic aid of an earthly father, there is no basis to conclude other than that Jesus (the Son of Mary) belonged to the tribe of Judah. The only way the child Jesus could've ever been of another tribe was if the father was from a different tribe. In this case Joseph too (Jesus' legal father) was from the tribe of Judah so either way, Legally or biologically, Jesus was of the tribe of Judah since Mary and joseph belonged to the same tribe. Also because Jesus belonged to Mary and Mary belonged to the tribe of Judah, thus Jesus belonged to the tribe of Judah. For more, in depth, info on this topic : http://www.christianthinktank.com... [4] HE MUST BE A DESCENDANT OF DAVID My opponent states : "The only problem with this 'explanation' is that it would logically follow that Jesus had no legal claims to David's lineage." This is false. Jesus in both legal (Matthew) and biological (Luke) genealogies is descended from David. Through Mary his biological mother, Jesus descends from David through Nathan. Through Joseph his legal father, Jesus descends from David through Solomon. In BOTH genealogies Jesus is a descendant of king David. In fact NO ONE during the time, even though genealogical records were available to the doubters, ever disputed Jesus' Davidic decendency. There are in fact numerous instances where the Jews call Jesus "Son of David" : "As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, 'Have Mercy on us, Son of David' " (Matthew 9:27, Mark 10:47) "A Canaanite women from the vicinity came to him crying out, 'Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!' " (Matthew 15:22) "All the people were astonished and said, 'could this be the Son of David' " (Matthew 12:23) "But when the chief priests and teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, 'Hosanna to the Son of David', they were indignant." (Matthew 21:15) Even Zacharia (Jewish priest) had this to say of Jesus : "He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David" (Luke 1:69) [5] HE MUST BE A DESCENDANT OF SOLOMON AS WELL My opponent states : "Secondly, when examining Mary's genealogy given in Luke, it comes from Nathan instead of Solomon." This is true of Mary's genealogy but not of Joseph's. Joseph is the one who descends from Solomon (Matthew 1:6-7). This is not even necessary though. The promise to David was unconditional and is constantly referred to through the OT and Rabbinic literature. It is always the "throne of David" and never the "throne of Solomon". It is always David who returns and never Solomon. The promise to Solomon sounds like the same unconditional promise to David, but it is not! It is actually a conditional promise as can be seen from the parallel and other passages like 1 Chronicles 20:5 and 2 Chronicles 7:17. In fact, Solomon completely violated the condition that God put forth. He did not only 'sin lightly' and this is documented in the Hebrew Bible and recognized in the Rabbinics. Indeed when God DID divest Solomon of his kingdom (upon failing the condition as the HB explicitly says), his son (Rehoboam) ruled a part of the kingdom is spite of his relation to Solomon (1 Kings 11:14). Solomon actually lost the kingdom to someone not in his line (his servant)! And the fractional part of the kingdom that is retained by his son is ONLY because of the promise made to David, not because of the promise made to Solomon! Thus the genealogy in Matthew traces Jesus back to Solomon and then to David. Full legal, dynastic lineage of Jesus is affirmed thereby. For more info on this topic : http://www.christianthinktank.com... My opponent proceed to say : "Finally, Matthew lists a king who was cursed; namely the king known as Jehoiakim." Actually the curse was placed on Jeconiah (or Jehoiachin) son of Jehoiakim. Anyway... Jews seem to have found favor with this argument. However this argument is not as convincing as it seems. In fact, the prophecy in Jeremiah 22 is not referring to Jeconiah's descendants FOR ALL TIME. The context of the passages seem to limit the scope to just Jeconiah's immediate descendants. The phrase "in his lifetime" focuses the passage on the immediate future; the "for" word connects the "no man of his descendants" (Jeremiah 22:30) with the "in his lifetime" --- the strong casual relationship between not-prospering-now and his descendants is strong evidence for an immediate future context. The "again" word (od) is not the "big" forever word : ad-olam or le-olam. Immediately after this passage, Jeremiah relays a promise by God to raise up a righteous branch of David (Jer 23)! Could Jeremiah have been so blind as to not notice such a contradiction (if the preceding chapter referred to the end of the Davidic line) ?? It's much more likely that this is a deposing of Jeconiah, and a promise of a better king from the house of David. This views is held by a vast number of commentators such as Craig.P in Volume.26 of the World Biblical Commentary. So since the curse of Jeconiah is not to be extended past his immediate descendants as I have just illustrated above, then my opponents argument becomes fruitless and holds no water. EVEN IF I take the position that the curse was eternal, there still poses no problem to Jesus' claim to the throne of David. This is because Jesus was a divine child, adopted legally by Joseph, and as such he was rightfully handed the reign to David's throne. Therefore Jesus was a legitimate royal heir to the throne. The line had no curse upon it produced Heli and his daughter the Virgin Mary and her Son Jesus. He is thus eligible by the line of Nathan and exhausts the line that line. The line that bore the curse produced Joseph and exhausts the line of Solomon, for Joseph's other children now have an elder brother who ,legally by adoption, is the royal heir to the throne of David and is still free of the curse of the bloodline of Jeconiah. Bear in mind that both the Davidic lines of Nathan and Solomon are exhausted so if any man comes after the time of Jesus claiming to be the messiah, he is a LIAR! All the possibilities of a messiah of the royal bloodline of Solomon , through his succeeding son Rehoboam, ended at Jesus. This is because Jesus was the only legal descendant of the lineage who did not bear the biological curse. Since Jesus had no descendants, and all his siblings bore the curse, there are only 2 conclusions this issue can have : (1) Jesus was the Messiah Or... (2) No messiah is coming http://www.abideinchrist.com... C2 : JESUS WAS A FALSE PROPHET A- Failed prophecies? My opponent quotes Matthew 24:1-2 and provides a picture of the "Western Wall" in Jerusalem and also states : "This (the picture) shows one part of the enclosed wall that Herod the Great built around the temple in the 1st century BCE; is apparent this prophecy failed." This is completely false and displays my opponents poor reading of Matthew 24:1-2. The passage in question is solely focused on THE TEMPLE ITSELF and NOT on the surrounding enclosures. Jesus' disciples came to him and started admiring the majesty of the temple's architecture. In response to this, Jesus prophecies against the temple and says that "Not one stone shall be left upon another that has not fallen down". This was fulfilled in 70AD when the Romans destroyed the temple down to its very foundations! Today not ONE remnant of the temple is left. The Western Wall is irrelevant to the prophecy as it was not part of the actual temple itself. The Western Wall just served as a means to enclose the Temple area... Nothing more! B - Change the Torah ? POINT 1 : Law of burial My opponent quoted Matthew 8:21-22 as evidence of Jesus changing and showing disrespect to the law. He then quotes the Oral Law which teaches the procedure on how to bury an innocent person. Jesus was referring to the secondary burial Jewish practice. When the disciple requested to bury his father, he meant the Jewish custom of second burial by placing the bones of the decomposed deceased in an ossuary. In the tomb of the disciple's family, family members as well as his father who had died were in it and some were would have obviously been awaiting second burial. While others were already in ossuaries. Hence Jesus said let the dead bury their dead. He said this in reference to this Jewish custom (Not law). The custom in NOT Mosaic Law and thus Jesus never changed, disrespected or broke any divine law. He only broke the meaningless customs of man. http://www.ldolphin.org... POINT 2 - Dietary laws The dietary laws addressed in Matthew 15:10 are NOT part of the Law that God gave to Moses, but rather they are part of the Laws of men (Oral law, non-divine) and thus Jesus EVEN quotes Isaiah 29:13 to support his statement as he says, in Matthew 15:7-9 : "You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you : 'These people honor me with their lips, But their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; Their teachings are but rules taught by men' " This is the reason why he said what he said in Matthew 15:10. YES Jesus did away with the dietary laws of MEN, but NOT ONCE did Jesus do abolish a law from God in the Torah. C3- JESUS FAILED TO FULFILL THE MESSAINIC PROPHECIES 1) The Messiah is to bring eternal peace between all people and nations Let us investigate the provided quotes : "In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as a chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many people will come and say, "Come , let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, the house of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem." (Isaiah 2:2-4) Notice that the verse says NOTHING about the messiah bringing peace nor does it say anything about an eternal peace. The passage is simply telling about the last days and how the mountain of the LORD will be the centre of world attention. Micah 4:1-4 actually says the exact same thing and Is almost word for word identical to Isaiah 2:2-4. Although it does make reference to world peace, nowhere does it say messiah will be the cause of this. It makes no mention to a man causing the peace. The only assumption that can be made is that God himself is the cause of this peace. This would contradict jewish theology as messiah is only a man in judaism and not divine. "Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and use the weapons for fuel and burn them up- war clubs and spears. FOR SEVEN years they will use them for fuel." (Ezekiel 39:9) Notice again that the passage nowhere hints at a human cause to for this peace but only tells how people will act during the period of peace. Secondly the passage says that the peace will last for seven years, it will not be eternal. As a christian, I do believe in the eternal peace that will be brought about by the messiah Jesus. However, we believe he will do this in his second coming. NOWHERE in scripture does it say that messiah has to do all these things in his first coming! NOWHERE!! 2) Messiah is supposed to bring about universal knowledge of God full Torah observance My opponent provides no evidence for this claim and thus its presence is nullified and is futile until evidence is provided. 3) Gather the Jews back to Israel "For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land." Notice again that it is GOD HIMSELF saying that He Himself will bring the jews back to Israel. This proves problematic for my opponent as jewish doctrine teaches that messiah is not God, but a mere man. So, in effect, this verse that my opponent uses to prove his case actually proved detrimental to his case and is contradictory to modern jewish theology. The verse is question evidently is NOT messianic if modern jewish theology is applied. CONCLUSION The burden of proof is on Pro and all I have to do is prove his assertions to be speculative or false in order to win this debate. I have provided ample theological evidence to prove that Jesus was indeed the Jewish Messiah as I have proved my opponents case false. As a result I still hold the position that Jesus was the Messiah. I look forward to my opponents rebuttals.