From: btiffany@pbs.org
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
Subject: Questions for Tom Albrecht
Date: 9 Apr 92 18:38:21 GMT
Organization: PBS:Public Broadcasting Service, Alexandria, VA

There are a few things I've been waiting to hear from you on, Tom, but
nothing has been forthcoming.  Please respond to the following.

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Subject:Re: The Rebuilding of the Temple
Date: 28 Feb 92 09:08:57 EST

On 2/26/92 you said:
>Bruce's difficulty is in wanting to have it both ways, i.e., he wants to
>acknowledge that the animal sacrifieces were a shadow and type of the
>sacrifice of Messiah, but he wants to believe that the shadows and types
>will be reinstituted because God hasn't "lost His taste for blood."

Please document where I said God "hasn't lost His taste for blood", or
retract this statement.

>(They [MJ's, in celebrating the biblical feasts]
>are in a sense guilty of the sin of Nadab and Abihu worshipping God with
>"strange fire.")

*Please* explain how celebrating these feasts is equivalent to offering
up strange fire.  PLEASE!  I can hardly wait to hear this!!!

>Every Passover celebration today is based on modified traditions which were
>invented by non-believing Jews to account for the fact that their Temple
>had been destroyed by God as predicted by Jesus.

How do you know what we do?  When was the last celebration at which you were
in attendance?

Please document the alleged connection between our celebrations and the
traditions of the rabbis, point by point, and tell us when you saw these
things take place in any MJ congregation.

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Subject:Re: The heavenly Jerusalem
Date: 3 Mar 92 09:17:16 EST

On March 3 I again asked you to "tell me how Old Jerusalem relates to
Babylon; and be sure to tell me how Isaiah 1:10, 1:18, 1:21, 1:26, and
1:27, and Ezekiel 16:15, 16:32, 16:60, and 16:62-63 fit in."

I am *most* interested in hearing from you on this, as I think it is a
central issue in respect to our very different ways of approaching
scripture.

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Subject:Re: Coming in clouds: Part 2
Date: 17 Mar 92 12:30:49 EST

>>With all this in mind, why can't the destruction of the temple be in the
>>same age that extends up to the very second coming of Christ?

>Because, 1) it violates the interpretive principle of apocalyptic biblical
>literature ...

This is a curious reason.  It sounds to me like you mean "it violates the
postmillennialist principle of interpretation".

Maybe you'd better explain this "interpretive principle of apocalyptic
biblical literature".

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I never heard a peep out of you on this.  I've been waiting for some
substantive response to Dan Juster's three principles of interpretation
of scripture.  I've never heard of an "interpretive principle of
apocalyptic biblical literature".  I'm very interested in finding out just
what the definition is, who defined it (or developed it), and how it is
applied.  Merely saying something can't be so because it violates this
principle, as if this principle were well known and accepted by all
concerned, is no kind of answer.  Or maybe I'm the only one who's never
heard of it.  In either case, please enlighten me!

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I'm also still waiting for a definitive answer to this one:

>>>The old
>>>covenant physical nation of Israel had become the new covenant spiritual
>>>nation of Israel.
>>
>>And what has become of the "old covenant physical nation of Israel", and to
>>the promises made to the "old covenant physical nation of Israel"?
> 
>That's not too hard to figure out.  The nation of Israel was punished by
>God in AD70 for rejecting the Messiah, just as Jesus said they would be.

Please show us where Jesus said the nation of Israel would be "punished by
God" for rejecting the Messiah.

-->  Actually, Tom, I'd still like both questions answered.  Since the old
covenant physical nation of Israel has become the new covenant spiritual
nation, what has become of the old covenant physical nation?  Your answer
sounded like, "God detroyed them."  But 1/3 of them survived, so that's
not true.  Your wording causes me to picture in my mind the physical people
of Israel being somehow becoming the Church (which is, according to you,
the continuation of OT Israel).  But I still see a physical Israel.  If
the Church -- the New Israel -- is the metamorphosed Old Israel, what do we
do with all the residue left over from the Old Israel?  To me it looks like
Old Israel is the same Israel that's living in Eretz Yisrael now.  But we
can't have two Israels, can we?  So which is the real one?  And if one is
not real, then what is to be done with it?  How are we to relate to the
fake?

Again, you said:

>The nation of Israel was punished by God in AD70 for rejecting the
>Messiah, just as Jesus said they would be.

I responded:

Please show us where Jesus said the nation of Israel would be "punished by
God" for rejecting the Messiah.

I have not seen an answer to this.  You quoted some things Yeshua said
about what would happen to Jerusalem 40 years later, but you never answered
my question.  You stated that Jesus said Isarel would be punished by God for
rejecting the Messiah.  I have never seen that in the Bible.  I really want
to know where you saw it, if you did.  (Is there a Chilton Translation?)

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Subject:Re: The heavenly Jerusalem
Date: 28 Mar 92 15:40:58 EST

You did respond to this, but you never answered it.  I'd like an answer.

You said:

>>>How do you deal with Matt. 12:28,29 where Jesus says Satan, "the strong
>>>man," has been bound, and that folks are being set free from his bondage?

I responded:

Yeshua had just cast *demons* out of a man (12:22); the P'rushim accused Him
of driving out *demons* by the ruler of demons.  12:28 shows that He is
talking about driving demons out of individuals (not driving Satan out of
the world).  The analogy of 12:29 is given in that context.

You said: "Jesus says Satan, 'the strong man,' has been bound ..."

WHERE does Jesus say this?

If I can make it clearer:

	"SATAN THE STRONG MAN HAS BEEN BOUND."

Or even:	"SATAN HAS BEEN BOUND."

Where is it recorded that Yeshua said this?

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Thanks ever so much.

-- Bruce Tiffany