Zionism on Wikipedia

For those of you who have been following my Wikipedia posts, you should be aware that Wikipedia is far from a neutral source of information, especially on controversial issues. Still, the public believes in Wikipedia as a neutral source of knowledge. This may be in part because most people do not have the time to read all of the pro and con arguments for every issue, and Wikipedia is both at the top of Google searches, and tends to give relevant information about a topic.

Ideologues have taken note about how Wikipedia sways public opinion, and have resorted to tactics on how to take it over. Susan Gerbic and her Guerilla Skeptics have been especially skilled at this, but they have not been the only group.
The nation of Israel has also noticed that Wikipedia sways public opinion, and has dedicated considerable time, effort, energy, and money toward helping Wikipedia reflect a pro-Zionist point of view. This effort has been overwhelmingly successful, as Wikipediocracy notes, despite that Zionism is a small minority view in the world.

Sam Lee of Wikipediocracy gives the following links in the article:
The right’s latest weapon: ‘Zionist editing’ on Wikipedia, Haaretz
Wikipedia Editing for Zionists, New York Times
Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups, The Guardian
Zionist Internet Struggle to Hit Wikipedia, Israel National News,
Wikipedia: A New Battleground in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, The Daily Beast
West Bank Settlers Take To Wikipedia, Haaretz
Aligning text to the right: Is a political organization editing Wikipedia to suit its interests? Haaretz

The effort has been so successful, that every single person in the Wikipedia category of Israeli Murdered Children is someone murdered by a Palestinian. But this isn't the only way that Zionist editors dominate the topic.

Besides creating articles about “Hamas people saying something stupid”, propagandists are also very active in every AfD (Article for Deletion) debate, making sure that articles about killed Palestinians get deleted. So we have Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rania Siam (T-H-L) (deleted); Rania Iyad Aram (T-H-L) (deleted); Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jihad Shaar (T-H-L) (deleted); and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ghadeer Jaber Mkheemar (T-H-L) (deleted). Killed Palestinian children should remain faceless and nameless, and Wikipedia editors are here just continuing the censorship from elsewhere; see this Guardian article: Israel bans radio advert listing names of children killed in Gaza (and here is a link to the B’Tselem press release.)

The co-founder of Wikipedia claims that ”every Wikipedia editor has a responsibility to try to be neutral”, and that “the community” enforces this. Anyone with a familiarity with the Israel/Palestine area on Wikipedia knows that this is complete rubbish. Over at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement (T-H-L) it is taken for granted that editors are there to promote their POV (point of view), rather than to seek neutrality.

Jimmy Wales has an almost religious conviction that “crowd-sourcing” works, even for contentious subjects. The reality on the ground shows he might just as well believe in magic pixies, spreading their magic pixie dust all over Wikipedia, making it an objective reflection of the world.

The New York Times mentions:

The Yesha Council also announced a prize for the “Best Zionist Editor” — the person who over the next four years incorporates the most “Zionist” changes in the encyclopedia. That lucky encyclopedist will receive a trip in a hot-air balloon over Israel.

This is impressive. Unlike many people who cover these events, I am in full support of what they are doing. Naftali Bennett and the Yesha Council seem to have a clear view of the situation. They recognize that people form their opinions on issues based on the information that they receive. Control the information channels (which include education, news, and entertainment) used by the mainstream, general public (rather than just your internal group), and you control what the public believes. Bennett is willing to accept and embrace that fact. Christian Evangelicals take note: This is how you win a culture war.

I encourage Messianic Jews and Christian Zionists to help out with this effort. Wikipedia is mob-sourced, so if you get a bigger mob on an article, you can take control of that article. Israel is still beleaguered and needs your help to cut through the Palestinian propaganda. I noticed this when I visited England. Anti-Zionist activists were present at many of the tourist areas, engaging people and handing out their literature. Zionists were nowhere to be found. For the sake of Israel, we need to fix this.

I also hope that if you are a Messianic Jew, or even a Christian sympathetic toward Messianic Judaism, that you consider registering for a Wikipedia account, and take the time to learn how to edit. Google is tremendously helpful in this regard. The easiest articles for you to improve are the ones related to key Messianic Jewish figures and organizations. There is a lot of room for more information, and very little resistance. As your ranks build, you can then take on articles such as the article on Messianic Judaism proper, and help give that a more positive slant.

Postscript
I also forgot to mention one of  the key factors to remember: Wikipedia editing is an activity for marathoners, not for sprinters. I can recall three pages off the top of my head (Theodore Beale, Burzynski Clinic, and Rupert Sheldrake) where someone called for their readers to fix a biased Wikipedia page. What happened is that a whole bunch of new editors and editors without Wikipedia accounts rushed in and made changes. The experienced editors called in the administrators and locked the page down in its previous state. Within a couple of weeks, the administrator unlocked the page, at which time the torrent of editors had faded away.

If you want to make a difference, you need to be in it for the long haul. Get an account and build some credibility by editing a variety of pages. Once you get 50 edits or so, on a variety of pages (no matter how trivial the edits), your voice will actually be counted in determining consensus on a page. It generally takes a while to make lasting edits, because controversial edits need to be discussed on the talk page first. Consensus is determined by which position has the majority of people arguing for it. But to get counted, you usually need to have some sort of a track record.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 45

John 7:5, "For neither did his brethren believe in him." If his own brothers, men of the same flesh and blood, and the nearest judges of the powers attributed to him, felt no inducement to admit his pretensions; surely we Jews may be excused for discrediting what his own contemporaries and brothers rejected as incredible. 

 I have dealt with this objection earlier. The mother and brothers of Jesus did have their doubts about him. As Troki points out, this information is embarrassing to those who preached the name of Jesus, since opponents of the movement undoubtedly used this fact to argue against them. This gives us even more reason to believe that such information was not invented by the followers of Jesus, but is historically accurate.

James, who was Jesus' own brother, did not believe until after the resurrection, until Jesus appeared to him. The church marks James the brother of Jesus as the early bishop of Jerusalem, and his death during a lapse in the Roman government is corroborated by the writings of Josephus. James went to his death proclaiming the supremacy of his own brother as God incarnate. Many of us have brothers. What kind of evidence would it take for you to believe that your own brother is God in the flesh? That is the kind of evidence that James and Paul received.

Evolution Before Darwin

Common knowledge tells us that creationism was the universally accepted belief before Charles Darwin came along and set the record straight. In fact, theories of evolution have been around since the very ancient world, and were part of pantheistic religions like that of ancient India.

Arguments for modern evolutionary theory trade on an equivocation: the fact that species change over time has never been disputed. Children are not identical to their parents. Yet, evolution, as described by people like Kenneth Miller, Richard Dawkins, Michael Ruse, and others is a process where nature brought about the complete diversity of life through the process of change over time. The strength of this hypothesis depends on whether you are open to supernatural explanations for the diversity of life or not. If not (and the theistic evolution movement is not), then modern evolutionary theory follows trivially. If you are open to such explanations, then modern evolution has very little going for it.

The push for acceptance of evolutionary biology is a political one. The acceptance of evolutionary biology, or even the existence of an old earth, is irrelevant to 99% of occupations. You generally don't care whether your auto mechanic believes in a 6,000 year old earth or a 4 billion year old earth. Proponents know that if they can establish modern evolutionary biology, it undermines our confidence in human uniqueness and in doctrines such as the inerrancy of the Bible, and in sex as a divinely designed activity. Acceptance of modern evolutionary biology increases society's acceptance that sex, marriage, and procreation can be separated into separate decisions, a goal of the sexual revolution movement. This is why evolution is so ardently pushed into public schools and to information storehouses such as Wikipedia. Do a search for Susan Gerbic to discover how secularists manipulate Wikipedia to serve their political ends.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 44

John 6:38, "For I [viz., Jesus], came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me."

If Jesus alludes here to the descent of his soul to the earth, in order to inhabit the body, then he has pronounced a common-place doctrine, for every human body is possessed of a soul; but if he meant that he descended from heaven in flesh, then the assertion is at variance with the other accounts, according to which he was born of a woman in Bethlehem, in a manger. See Luke 2:7. Moreover, we see here an acknowledgment of the all-important fact of his non-identity with the Godhead, as he professed to be only the agent of Him who sent him. 

This is another objection that is hard to understand. John is referring to the idea of Jesus becoming incarnate, just as Paul states in Philippians 2.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 ) 

 Ancient Israel spoke about cosmology in terms of a layered system. At the bottom, was the depths of hell. Above it is the world where we live. Above that is the first heaven, also known as the sky or the atmosphere. Above that is the second heaven, or outer space. Above that is the throne of God.

This is what John means by descent. Jesus, who was in the form of God, did not consider his equality with the Father as something to be grasped, or to be held onto at all costs. Instead, he gave up this glorious position by taking on the form of a servant. He came down from the throne of heaven and became incarnate. While in this state Jesus was dependent on the Father in order to know what to do. The Father was in a better position in heaven than Jesus was on earth, given his self-limited knowledge.

This, like many of Troki's objections, requires that one not understand the models of the divine trinity or of the incarnation of Jesus. Once those are understood, many of Troki's objections evaporate.

In fact, Maimonedes gave support to the coherence of trinitarian monotheism when he responded to Hippocrates' claim that we have three souls.

Know that the human soul is one, but that it has many diversified activities. Some of these activities have, indeed, been called souls, which has given rise to the opinion that man has many souls, as was the belief of the physicians, with the result that the most distinguished of them states in the introduction of his book that there are three souls, the physical, the vital, and the psychical. These activities are called faculties and parts, so that the phrase “parts of the soul,” frequently employed by philosophers, is commonly used. By the word “parts”, however, they do not intend to imply that the soul is divided into parts as are bodies, but they merely enumerate the different activities of the soul as being parts of a whole, the union of which makes up the soul. (from Shmoneh Parkim)

 Maimonedes is arguing that the soul has different activities, and through those activities has a complex unity.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 43

John 2:18-20, "Then answered the Jews, and said unto him [viz., to Jesus], What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?"

Could Jesus prove his divine character by thus advising the Jews to lay a sacrilegious hand on the sacred edifice? And, moreover, it was most unreasonable to ask that the Jews, who did not believe in his divine power, should commit an action that should consign the temple to everlasting destruction, merely for the sake of testing the reality of his character. 

Troki quotes John 2, but does not quote the whole passage. As John narrates

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
(John 2:18-22) 

John has a habit of rewriting all the dialogue in the style of his own narration, so little in the book of John is a direct quotation of anyone. John is filled with figurative language, telling Nicodemus to be born again, calling himself the door, telling a Samaritan woman that his living water will permanently quench thirst, and telling the crowds to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  People mistook him, and Jesus did not correct them.

The timing of the temple has also been the subject of controversy. Josephus claims that the temple took 8 years to rebuild, or 1.5 years, depending on whether you use book 15 or book 16 of Antiquities as your source. This only refers to the inner cloisters of the temple. Josephus tells us later that the temple was finished in the year 64 under Albinus. According to the Jewish War by Josephus, the renovations began around the year 20 B.C.E. meaning that Jesus gave this statement approximately in the year 26.

David Wood's Testimony

This is one of the most disturbing testimonies that I have ever heard. David Wood is a sociopath, incapable of feeling empathy toward anyone, and using his atheism to justify his behavior. In this story, Wood explains not only how he came to belief in God, but why he came to belief in Jesus as well.

Why Empiricism is Bankrupt

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with how we know things. Two rival schools in the field of epistemology are rationalism and empiricism. The former states that we have certain ideas hard-wired into us wholly apart from our sense experience. The latter states that there is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses. Modern psychology, especially infant studies, provides very strong support for the position that some of our ideas are hard-wired into us, since infants in those studies have knowledge of things they could not possibly have obtained through sense experience. I may discuss these in another post. For now, let's stick to purely philosophical arguments.

Greg Bahnsen has already showed that atheistic empiricism cannot account for most of what we consider knowledge, and I covered his argument pretty well in Atheism and the Problem of Knowledge. Edward John Carnell has a series of arguments against theistic empiricism.

Innate Knowledge
Empiricist theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Maimonedes argued that we do not have innate knowledge. Everything that we know begins in sense experience. The empiricist cannot know that knowledge of the past gives us knowledge about the future. The theistic empiricist has that difficulty plus the problem of how we can possibly have knowledge of God, who is not perceived by the senses.

To an empiricist, all concepts must come from experience, but all that experience tells us is what is not God. If we do not have innate knowledge of God, then we cannot know the essence of God.

Problem of Predication
When we take a look at what sense perception delivers to us, the problem gets worse. All concepts are useless when applied to God, for God occupies a different realm of being than the world of sense experience. On empiricism, our concepts cannot apply univocally to God.

This would lead us to conclude that a proposition about a creature necessarily loses all meaning when applied to God. It follows from such a principle that if we take our starting point from the world of sense experience, we can know nothing of God nor prove anything concerning him without continual equivocations.

Negative Theology
Might we not come to God by way of negation? Can we build a theology using only negations such as "God is not ignorant" and "God is not mortal"? Such an endeavor cannot be sufficient to know anything about God. We must know God to be able to say that he is not this or that. How could we tell him from this or that if we did not first know him? To say that a piano is not a banana is to give us no clues as to what a piano has which separates it from all other things which are also not bananas.

For example, we know that a piano is not a banana, but that does not distinguish it from a yacht, which is also not a banana. We need more than negation to help us. Negative theology alone leads to skepticism and agnosticism.

Analogical Theology 
Aquinas admitted that from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be known. Still, because creation is an effect with God as the cause, we can be led from creation to the creator. Remember that a term can be used in three ways: with the same meaning (univocally), with a different meaning (equivocally), and with a meaning that is partially the same and partially different.

The term "animal" can be predicated univocally of a cat, a dog, and a horse. The term "Greek" is predicated equivocally when we apply it to the language and then to the philosopher Socrates. The term "loud" is analogical when we apply it to both sound and to the color of one's shirt.

Analogy is based on a comparison which can only be obtained when there is neither complete agreement nor complete disagreement between two things. There are two glaring fallacies in analogy when prevents it from being a way that the empiricist can know about God based on experience.

First, it is built on a contradiction. Aquinas says there is no univocal element in the terms that we apply both to the world and to God, yet he affirms that we understand God through analogy. The one and only thing that separates analogy from equivocation is its univocal element. When we say that the mind is to the soul as the eye is to the body, the univocal element is "light" or "guide." When we say "the foundation is to the house as the heart is to the organism," the univocal element is "sustaining basis." The success of any analogy is non-analogical. IF there is no univocal element, it is just like comparing two unrelated things, and this is equivocation. No meaning is conveyed. Without meaning, there is no truth, for truth is properly construed meaning.

If there are no terms which apply univocally to God, then there can be no element from which we can draw analogies. Hence, we are no better off than verificationists. Where, in the whole gamut of our sensory experience, can we find that univocal element which a successful analogy requires, that we may use it in making a comparison between God and man? How can the non-spatial be abstracted from the spatial, the spiritual from the material, the eternal from the temporal, the changeless form the flux? The intellect may be active ,but cannot take from sensory experience what is not there.

There is one way to complete an abstraction from nature: bu setting aside the differentiating aspects of each item and retaining the aspects which are common. For example, if I examine all animals, such as cats, cows, worms, and sardines, as long as I examine vertebrates, I can arrive at the abstract idea of vertebrates. When I take in worms, I then have to take a more abstract concept. When I add plants to the list, I need the further abstract notion of a living being. As long as animation is common to all of the items examined, I cannot discard it.

If I know all of being by way of sensible beings, I can never discard from my final abstract ideas the element of sensible being, for all my knowledge is loaded with it. By abstraction, therefore ,I have no basis for believing that from sense perception I can rise to a knowledge of the necessary, eternal, and immaterial in God. Wherever my ideas go, there trails along the notion of the sensible being, in common to all concepts abstracted from sensation which cannot be discarded.

To admit simultaneously that we have no univocal knowledge of God, that all our knowledge comes from sensation, and that we can avoid ambiguity and equivocation by referring predication to the analogy of being, is a contradiction in terms. The only element in analogy which distinguishes it from equivocation is the univocal. If the univocal element is admitted, then how do we account for it if there is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses? We either give up empiricism or admit that talk about God is meaningless.

Secondly, analogy alone makes God unknowable. If God's essence is unknown (as Thomists admit), then it follows that his existence is equally unknowable (since God's existence is supposed to be the same as his essence). The Thomist will quote Romans in response.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20) 

To argue that Romans 1:20 supports empiricism is to argue in a circle. If this view can be coherently explained from any non-empiricist standpoint, then the argument loses all of its force. God may be known through sense perception, but this does not rescue empiricism. May it not be equally true that having innate knowledge of God, we are reminded of him by his works?

Empiricists believe that the principles of proof originate in sense perception. It follows from this that all that exceeds the sensible worlds is unamenable to proof. God exceeds all our senses and sensible objects, but his effects are often sense objects. Yet the fact remains that under theistic empiricism, any knowledge that we could have of the supersensible comes solely from our knowledge of the sensible. But we msut remember that in the argument where we argue for the existence of God, we cannot take as a principle the essence of God, which is unknown to us. The proof being impossible, the only road that can lead us to a knowledge of the creator must cut through the things of sense.

Thomists also argue that God has two sides: as he is eternally in himself, and also as he appears to us in our examination of the content of our sense perceptions. This does not help. How can we possibly know that a thing exists when we do not know what it is? What is it that we are talking about? If we cannot first know him as he is, then how can we draw any connection between God in himself, and God as he appears to us? It does not even seem meaningful to speak of God's essence, for we have no known means of ascertaining what the term "God" even means. Without meaning, truth is absent. So this position is contradictory.

For the Thomist who bites the bullet and states that we can know God even if we do not know his essence, then this opens the gate to other unknowables when one defends an unknown God. If we can talk about God whose essence we do not know, then we can talk of blarps and blegs and splinth and other nonsensical terms with equal clarity. No one knows enough to assert the existence of an object of which they know nothing. The assertion that an object of which nothing can be known reduces to total skepticism. The right of each of us to assert this kind of unknowable throws all objectivity into confusion; and the implicit contradiction contained in asserting that something cannot be known cuts the foundation out from any and all knowledge.


The end of empiricism is verificationism, and the end of positivism is Cratylus, who could not so much as speak, but only waved his hands.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 42

John 2:4, "Jesus saith unto her (viz., to his mother Mary), Woman, what have I to do with thee?" and ibid, chapter 19:26, "When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother. Woman, behold thy son." If he had believed that his mother had miraculously given birth to him, and still continued in her virgin state, would he not have addressed her by the more endearing and exalting appellation than the simple term woman? The mode in which he addressed his mother here, and on various other occasions narrated in the New Testament, shows that he was not at all impressed with the sanctity of the commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother." 

I don't see how any doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary is even relevant to this discussion. Addressing someone today by the term "woman" is quite rude, but ancient Greek did not have such a stigma. J.P. Holding writes:

Critics often accuse Jesus of being rude to his mother here; however, as parallel phrases in Greek literature show, this is not a phrase of derision or rudeness but of loving respect (as our NIV correctly captures). Consider this relevant data:

1. The term here is "Jesus' normal, public way of addressing women" (John 4:21, 8:10, 19:26, 20:31; Mt. 15:28; Lk. 13:12). It is also a common address in Greek literature, and never has the intent of disrespect or hostility. [Brow.GJ, 99].
2. The same term is used in Josephus Antiquities 17.17 by Pheroras to summon his beloved wife. [Beas.J, 34]
3. As for the second part of the response, it reads literally: "What to me and to you?" This is a Semitic phrase that indicates that the speaker is being unjustly bothered or is being asked to get involved in a matter that is not their business. It can be impolite, but not always. (cf. 2 Kings 3:13, Hos. 14:8) [Brow.GJ, 117] The intent must be determined by the context, and the first part of Jesus' saying does point to the latter intent.

Malina and Rohrbaugh [Social-Science commentary, 299] add that such implication of distance was in fact quite proper in a society where men were expected to break the maternal bonds by a certain age. Jesus' reaction is entirely respectful and appropriate in this context.
I like to add non-Biblical examples on things like this, since we (and even Biblical scholars) are accused of making this stuff up. J. K. Campbell in Honour, Family and Patronage [164] describes how among the Sarakatsan of Greece, a young man of a certain age is expected to be even "ruder" to their mother than the critics suppose Jesus to be: He rejects her gestures of affection, and will (for example), if it rains, ignore dry clothes she puts out for him. "Particularly between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, he is given to outbursts of rudeness towards his mother and his sisters. By this abruptness to the women of his family he hopes to give a further demonstration of his growing manliness." Mothers, by the way, are not offended by this, but "are amused and also a little proud as they observe these antics of their young sons. They understand their feelings and approve of them."
-JPH

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 41

John 1:21, "And they asked him. What then? Art thou Elias? and he said, I am not. Art thou that prophet? and he answered. No."

This verse completely contradicts the statement made in Matthew 11:13, 14, according to which John is included in the list of prophets, and is held to be the last of them. The words used in that book, which we have had occasion to adduce, run as follows: "All the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if ye will receive it, this is Elias [Elijah], which was for to come." In Matthew 17:12, 13, Jesus, in alluding to John, affirms that the forerunner of himself as a Messiah had come, although he had not been acknowledged as such. He says there, "Elias [Elijah], is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake of John the Baptist."

Once, on representing this contradiction to a Christian, he evaded a direct answer by the retort, that Samuel likewise denied his true mission, for he told Saul that he was on his way to offer up sacrifices, while his real object was to anoint David as king of Israel.

The cogency of this reply is not apparent, for Samuel made no secret of his mission to David to whom he had to communicate the Divine will, but observed the necessary caution with Saul, to whom he had not been sent. Different, however, was the case with the pretended Elias.

If he [John], had to bring the Jews the tidings of the advent of the Messiah, he very strangely performed his duty, by denying his character and concealing his message.

John the Baptist spent his career living in strange and impoverished circumstances, and calling people out to repentance. After centuries, the gift of prophecy had returned to the people of Israel. Malachi foretold that God would send Elijah the Prophet in that great and terrible Day of the Lord. Jesus explained that Elijah himself had not returned in person. The religion of Israel believed in resurrection, which is not compatible with reincarnation. Jesus said that Elijah has come, since John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah.

So what is the problem with John denying that he is Elijah the prophet? John probably did not see himself in the same glowing terms as Jesus saw him. John likely expected that the terrible Day of the Lord was the great apocalypse that would hail the end of the world, and he would have thought that Elijah would have been resurrected and come on that day. And maybe that's the case.

The prediction that Elijah would come is only found in Malachi, and the Day of the Lord is left vague. It could mean the coming of Messiah, or it could mean the end of the world. There is nothing in the Messianic prophecies that says that the coming of Messiah and the end of the world will both happen within one lifetime. There could be 10,000 years between the two, for all we know.

Atheism and the Problem of Knowledge

Taken from Greg Bahnsen vs. Michael Martin: The Debate That Never Was.

Infinity and the Kalam Cosmological Argument

If you haven't seen the video on the Kalam argument, please have a look at the video. It is short, and gives the background needed to understand the rest of this post:


Infinity

In response to the arguments against the infinite, opponents have stated that there is a fully coherent system of transfinite mathematics which proves the system coherent. The problem is that coherence in a formal system is quite different from coherence in reality. The main point of this article is that mathematicians can either hold to a realist view of numbers or can hold to infinity as a legitimate mathematical concept, but not both. For an introduction to infinity, I recommend this video by Bill Shillito. The actual lecture starts at 2:00.

Formal Systems vs. Sciences
We need to draw a distinction between a formal system and an investigation of reality. A formal system is a bit like a game. You have objects, rules for manipulating those objects, and various starting positions which are called "axioms." Think of the game of chess. You have pieces such as the king, rook, and knight. You have an object called the chessboard. You have rules for manipulating those objects. You also have a starting board position, which serves as your axiom.

  Theorems are like board positions in chess other than the starting board position.

You can prove that a board position is a theorem of the chess game by showing all the moves that get you from the starting point to that position.

You can also prove that board positions, like this one, are impossible given the rules of chess and the starting position. For example, you can show that both sides start with 16 pieces, and then go through the rules one by one to show that none can increase the number of pieces that a side has. Therefore, a board position where one side has 40 pieces is provably not a theorem of the system.

The fun thing about formal systems is that you can make the rules as arbitrary as you want. For example, you can stipulate that there is such a thing as "all the black squares" and that there is such a thing as "all the white squares" while denying that there is such a thing as "all the black and white squares."

That's what formal systems are: games based on stipulated rules which may or may not have anything to do with reality. This is distinct from investigations of reality, where you have to give some account as to why you think it works a certain way. You cannot just make things up as you go along, the way you can when creating a formal system.

Georg Cantor, the inventor of the mathematics of infinity, believed that he was investigating facts about reality. His system was based on naive set theory, which defined numbers as kinds of sets, and sets as "any well-defined collection of things." So, you could have a set of book on the table, or a set of marbles in the drawer, or a set of other sets, which is how set theory defines numbers.

Paradoxes
The problem with naive set theory is that it has been proven to contain contradictions. Here are just three of the paradoxes that arise from this set theory:

Burali-Forti Paradox: Set theory defines an ordinal as the order type of a set. The set of all ordinals would also have an ordinal number. But if the set of all ordinals had an ordinal number, then that ordinal would have to be in the set, and hence would not be the order type of all ordinals. The set of all ordinals is part of naive set theory (since it is a well-defined collection of things) and yet is self-contradictory.

Cantor's Paradox: A cardinal number is the number of elements in a set. The power set is the set of all subsets in a set. Since Cantor proved that the power set must always be greater than the set, what about the set of all cardinals? Again, the set of all cardinals is a well-defined collection of things, but for any value you give it, you can always derive a higher cardinality from the power set operation. So the set of all cardinals is also self-contradictory.

Russell's Paradox: An impredicative definition is one that includes itself. 'Phrases in the English language' is an example, since that is itself a phrase in the English language. The set of all sets would be a member of itself. The set of all horses would not, since sets are not horses. What about the set of all sets that are not members of themselves? If it is a member of itself, then it fails the definition, and should not be included. If it is not a member of itself, then it fits the definition and should be included. In other words, if it is included, then it should not be included. If it is not included, then it should be included. Contradiction.

Escaping the Paradoxes
Mathematicians escaped these paradoxes by creating axiomatic set theories, such as Zermelo-Fraenkel or New Foundations. In these set theories, a set is something defined by the axioms. Axiomatic set theory turns set theory into a formal system, like the game of chess. Rules are stipulated as arbitrarily as you want. Axiomatic set theory can rescue set theory from the paradoxes, but it cannot rescue mathematical realism from these paradoxes.

The problem with mathematical realism is that there is no way to avoid these paradoxes. If sets really existed, then there is no justification to say that sets cannot be members of themselves. Clearly, there are categories that are members of themselves, such as the category of things in this post. And that is the difference between formal systems and reality. In formal systems, you can make up whatever rules you want, no matter how arbitrary. Reality is not so cooperative. For example, if sets existed, then we could categorize them in this fashion:

Or this fashion:

Or this fashion:

And in any of these three cases, our categorization brings rise to each of the three paradoxes. The only way around this is to stipulate that you cannot divide things into these categories. That works for formal systems, and that's the fun about playing a game. You can say that within the rules of your game, you can have sets that are members of themselves and sets that are not members of themselves, but make it illegal to create a category of all sets that are not members of themselves. When you are talking about the real world, however, you cannot just make things up like that when you are talking about reality.

For a fun video on mathematical realism and the arguments against it, I recommend this video on mathematical platonism by Kane Baker.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 40

Luke 23:34, "Then Jesus said, Father, pardon them, they know not what they do."

This appeal refutes the opinion of the Christians, who maintain that the Jews suffer the punishments of the Almighty for having put Jesus to death.

Can the Christians believe that God would not accept the supplication of Jesus?

Whether the supplication was accepted or not accepted, it is clear that the Jews do not lie under the punishment of the Almighty, in consequence of that deed. 

Clearly this prayer was heard, since the Jews were allowed to survive for a nation for another 40 years, and have been allowed to exist as a people group until this day. Not all instances of God's forgiveness mean that God has eliminated the consequences of the people's actions. David received forgiveness for his infidelity with Bathsheba, yet his child still died.

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” (2 Samuel 12:13-14)

Also, the passage is not explicit that Jesus was talking about the Jews. He was on the cross, surrounded not by the Pharisees, but by the Roman executioners. The context indicates that it is the Roman soldiers who are the subject of this passage.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 39

Luke 16:22, 23, Lazarus is stated to enjoy after his death the bliss of immortality in the bosom of Abraham, whilst the rich man, who indulged in the pleasures of this world, is to suffer the torments of hell. It is further said, that there subsists an infinite distinction between the abode of glory and that of perdition.

According to this account, it does not appear that either Abraham or Lazarus were after their death doomed to the punishment of hell, although the alleged work of the redemption of mankind had not yet been achieved by Jesus. We are therefore at a loss to know what the Christians mean by salvation wrought by Jesus, and what can be the danger of the original sin, when we see that it did not affect those who died unredeemed. 

 Let's take a look at the parable in Luke 16 in its entirety.

There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.

The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’

(Luke 16:19-31) 

 The main point of the parable is the ending. Those who do not pay attention to the teachings of God will not turn around and obey simply on the basis of seeing a miracle. Not even the resurrection of Jesus is enough to convince many people to follow him. This story also addresses objections by skeptics today. New Atheists often say that they would believe in God if only they would be shown a miracle.

Sure, they might believe in God, but mere belief is not enough. Even the demons believe in God. What God wants is not mere belief, but humble submission to his will. The Egyptians saw the open miracles performed by God, and yet did not repent. Their hearts were still hard, and they paid the ultimate price for it. God has provided enough evidence that those who are actively and humbly seeking him out will find him, while those who are not doing so, will likely not find him.

But to answer Troki's question, salvation was available to people before the time of Jesus because the faith of the people in God's redemption was counted to them as faith in Jesus. The abode of the dead is a temporary place until the final resurrection and judgment at the end of the world. This belief long preceded Christianity, having its origins probably in early Second Temple Judaism.

As far as Troki's objections about those who die unredeemed, remember that the salvation brought about by Jesus is ultimately for the final judgment at the end of the world.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 38

Luke 11:37-41, "And he [Jesus] went in and sat down to meat, and when the Pharisees saw it, they marvelled that he [Jesus] had not first washed before dinner." To this expression of purpose Jesus responded, "Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all things are clean unto you."

These arguments are merely quoted here, to show how illogical some of the replies are, which are put into the mouth of the assumed Son of God.

The negligent, and those who are indifferent to cleanliness, might screen themselves under such dicta; plain sense, however, would have suggested an answer of a different character. Other sayings of similar inconsistency in the replies of Jesus are recorded in the book of Matthew. 

This is similar to the passage in Matthew, where the disciples of Jesus were accused of eating with unwashed hands. Remember that this is not hygienic handwashing, but the ritual handwashing required of priests before eating bread. The Pharisees expanded this law as an anti-assimilation measure. It was also part of the Pharisees' agenda to bring equality to the classes of Israel, which is why they were so popular with the masses.

So, for these two reasons, the Pharisees performed the ritual handwashing that had previously been reserved only for the priests. This is why Judaism today has handwashing before eating bread. It is also why the rabbis pour salt over the bread at the table. The table is supposed to represent the altar, and the bread is supposed to represent a sacrifice. Again, part of the Pharisaic program of bringing priestly duties into the home of the ordinary Jews.

Jesus simply pointed out that many of the Pharisees were following their religious duties to an extreme extent while exploiting others behind their backs. This kind of hypocrisy happens today, for example, pedophilia is frighteningly common in Hasidic communities today. Christopher Ketchum writes:

On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, Rabbi Rosenberg entered into a mikvah in one of the holiest neighborhoods in the city, Mea She’arim. “I opened a door that entered into a schvitz,” he told me. “Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy.”

Rabbi Rosenberg paused, gathered himself, and went on: “This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face—fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn’t stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, ‘It’s a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy’s soul? You’re destroying this boy!’ He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. ‘How dare you interrupt me!’ he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen.”

 The man was outwardly following the stringencies of Orthodox Judaism, but neglected the moral law of God. Jesus was rebuking this kind of behavior.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 37

Luke 6:27-29, "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other, and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also." This injunction is a repetition of what is to be found in Matthew 5:39. These injunctions were and are, however, not only disregarded by the members of the Christian religion, but were not even practised by Jesus himself in the spirit in which the words imply. For in John 18:22, we find that Jesus, when beaten by a bystander, instead of offering quietly his other cheek, very naturally argued with him on the unfairness of such summary proceeding. Nor did Paul silently submit to the order given by the priest, that he should be smitten on the mouth, (Acts 23:2, 3), or offer his cheek in meek contentment, but indignantly swore "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." If the precept were broken, obviously from its extreme rigour, by the very disciple who promulgated it, it is strange to ascribe to the doctrines of Jesus, as is done in certain parts of the Gospel, a greater degree of practicability than to the original laws of Moses, a fact that must convince every thoughtful man that Christian doctrines are not always infallible.

Troki is absolutely correct in stating that Christians have often disobeyed this teaching. In this passage, Luke is recording one of the proverbs Jesus was teaching to the crowds. I feel like I have told people a million times that most of the teachings of the Jewish sages were expressed with hyperbole. They were exaggerated in order to be more easily memorized. Remember that in Matthew, Jesus told his followers that faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains, and that if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.

Jesus was responding to the popular movement of zealotry, inspired by the Maccabees during the revolt against the Seleucids. The Jews were greatly resentful of their Roman overlords, and many wanted to throw them out violently the way that they threw out the Greeks just a couple of centuries earlier. Jesus argued against this Zealot movement, a movement which not only failed to achieve its goals, but resulted in the destruction of the ancient Jewish state of Israel.

Troki simply becomes pedantic when he faults Jesus for rebuking people who struck him and Paul for rebuking the priest. Neither took up arms, and Jesus in fact told Peter to put away his sword. Both took the route of peace, and only historical revisionists will try to paint Jesus like a Zealot. There is simply too much attestation to the contrary.

The Ontological Argument and Concept Calculus: Developing a Consistency Theorem for Theism

For an introduction to the Ontological Argument, check out The Ontological Argument for the Triune God.

Does Fitch's Paradox Imply an Omniscient God?

Fitch's Paradox of Knowability states that if a truth can possibly be known, then that truth is known. Here is a summary from the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on the subject.

Our propositional variables p and q will take declarative statements as substituends. Let K be the epistemic operator ‘it is known by someone at some time that.’ Let ◊ be the modal operator ‘it is possible that’.
Suppose the knowability principle (KP)—that all truths are knowable by somebody at some time:

(KP) ∀p(p → ◊Kp).

And suppose that collectively we are non-omniscient, that there is an unknown truth:

(NonO) ∃p(p ∧ ¬Kp).

If this existential claim is true, then so is an instance of it:

(1) p ∧ ¬Kp.

Now consider the instance of KP substituting line 1 for the variable p in KP:

(2) (p ∧ ¬Kp) → ◊K(p ∧ ¬Kp)

It follows trivially that it is possible to know the conjunction expressed at line 1:

(3) ◊K(p ∧ ¬Kp)

However, it can be shown independently that it is impossible to know this conjunction. Line 3 is false.
The independent result presupposes two very modest epistemic principles: first, knowing a conjunction entails knowing each of the conjuncts. Second, knowledge entails truth. Respectively,

(A)	K(p ∧ q) ⊢ Kp ∧ Kq
(B)	Kp ⊢ p

Also presupposed are two modest modal principles: first, all theorems are necessary. Second, necessarily ¬ p entails that p is impossible. Respectively,

(C)	If ⊢ p, then ⊢□p.
(D)	□¬p ⊢ ¬◊p.

Consider the independent result:

(4)	K(p ∧ ¬Kp)	Assumption [for reductio]
(5)	Kp ∧ K¬Kp	from 4, by (A)
(6)	Kp ∧ ¬Kp	from 5, applying (B) to the right conjunct
(7)	¬K(p ∧ ¬Kp)	from 4–6, by reductio, discharging assumption 4
(8)	□¬K(p ∧ ¬Kp)	from 7, by (C)
(9)	¬◊K(p ∧ ¬Kp)	from 8, by (D)

Line 9 contradicts line 3. So a contradiction follows from KP and NonO. The advocate of the view that all truths are knowable must deny that we are non-omniscient:

(10) ¬∃p(p ∧ ¬Kp).

And it follows from that that all truths are actually known:

(11) ∀p(p → Kp).

The ally of the view that all truths are knowable by somebody is forced absurdly to admit that every truth is known by somebody.

In plain English:
Given a few very reasonable assumptions, we can prove that any truth that is knowable is also known. Here are the assumptions:

1. Knowledge implies truth (if some fact is known, then that fact is true).
2. If we know the conjunction of two truths (e.g. it's raining outside and my car is wet) then we know the two truths themselves (e.g. we know that it's raining outside and we know that my car is wet).
3. Contradictions are necessarily false.
4. All truths are at least possibly knowable.

If we assume that there is some truth that is unknown, and that such a truth is knowable, then we can derive a contradiction. It follows with logical certainty that if any truth is unknown, then it is unknowable. This means that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are known.

Strengthening the Argument
There is still one problem with the argument. Assumption 4 may very well be called into dispute. What reason do we have to think that all truths are knowable? Fair enough.

Let's switch assumptions by swapping out:
4. All truths are at least possibly knowable.
and swapping in:
4. Some particular truth is at least possibly knowable.

Let's call that particular truth q.

Now, let's replace the KP with a modified KP

(KP') ∃q(q ∧ ◊Kq) - There is some truth that is true and possibly knowable.
(NonO') (q ∧ ¬Kq) - This truth is also unknown.
(POS) ◊K(q ∧ ¬Kq) - The fact that this truth is unknown is at least possibly knowable.

If this existential claim is true, then so is an instance of it:

(1) q ∧ ¬Kq.

It is possible to know (1):

(2) (q ∧ ¬Kq) ∧ ◊K(q ∧ ¬Kq)

Given (2), we apply conjunction elimination:

(3) ◊K(q ∧ ¬Kq)

However, it can be shown independently that it is impossible to know this conjunction. Line 3 is false. If (3) is true, then there is some possible world where K(p ∧ ¬Kp) holds. If that world can be shown to be contradictory, then (3) is also false.

(4) K(q ∧ ¬Kq) Assumption [for reductio]
(5) Kq ∧ K¬Kq from 4, by (A)
(6) Kq ∧ ¬Kq from 5, applying (B) to the right conjunct
(7) ¬K(q ∧ ¬Kq) from 4–6, by reductio, discharging assumption 4
(8) □¬K(q ∧ ¬Kq) from 7, by (C)
(9) ¬◊K(q ∧ ¬Kq) from 8, by (D)

Line 9 contradicts line 3. So a contradiction follows from KP' and NonO'. Even when we modify the knowability principle, we still discover that if some truth is unknown, then it is unknowable.

Again, in plain English
Since"All truths are at least possibly knowable" has its difficulties, let's assume that some truths are unknowable. Does this rescue us from the paradox? Not at all. With a slight modification, we can use this argument to show that all knowable truths are known. This seems quite absurd. Does nobody truly gain new knowledge? Did we always know that the world is round? Did we always know that George Washington would be elected first President of the United States?

The only other way out is to deny that it is possible know (1), which puts us into a difficult spot. When we say that we can know (1), all we are saying is that we can know that there are unknown but knowable things. For example, we don't know my exact internal body temperature as I write this, but we sure could know it. Knowledge of this information is not impossible.

Remarks
The philosophical literature for this field is rich, and yet philosophers cannot come to a consensus as to which of these three principles is false. Attempts to revise the logic have generally resulted in implausible solutions, and each of the three assumptions seems quite plausibly true. There is simply no agreed solution as to how this problem should be resolved.

Philosophers generally try to jettison assumption 4 in order to solve the paradox, but that leads to some difficulties with truth and knowledge. On atheism, truth and meaning generally have to be defined in terms of our ability to know them. And regardless, the modified version of the argument does not require assumption 4, anyway.

Now, the question arises: why should we think of this as a paradox at all? A paradox is something that seems logically airtight, but implies an absurd conclusion. Curry's Paradox, for example, allows you to prove any conclusion that you want. That is what makes it a paradox. Fitch's paradox has no such strange implications. It just implies that all knowable truths are known. But what if you believe in an omniscient God?

The only argument against an omniscient God being the solution to this problem is that truth or meaning is somehow determined by linguistic communities. Yet I see know reason why we should believe this is true. The very definition makes truth both subjective and relative - a postmodern position indeed. It's hard to see how such definitions could be true or even meaningful. If meaning or truth is not absolute, then it's hard to see how the statement "meaning/truth is not absolute" is not true in an absolute sense. And therefore we should not look for truth and meaning to be grounded in relevant expressions in a human linguistic community. We should look to God as the ground and anchor of meaning and truth.

Is Fitch's Paradox an actual paradox? If you do not believe in God, then it seems impossible to resolve. If you do believe in an omniscient God, then it is not even a problem. There is someone who knows all knowable truths: God.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 36

Luke 4:17-21, "And there was delivered unto him (to Jesus) the book of the prophet Esaias, and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of God is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.' And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And he said unto them, 'This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.'" Isaiah 61 is here quoted in a garbled manner. In order to lay more stress on the healing, powers attributed to Jesus, the gift of restoring sight to the blind is added to the mission of the pretended Messiah. On the other hand, it is omitted to be quoted that this would be—"A day of vengeance to our God, to comfort all mourners, to give to the mourners of Zion glory instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the cloak of praise instead of a gloomy spirit." Jesus had no right to attribute to himself the glory of deeds he had not performed. Isaiah spoke here of himself. And by the words, "The Lord hath anointed me," he meant nothing more than that he had received the Divine unction as a prophet. It was he who was sent forth to offer consolation, in order that the Israelites, during their long sufferings, should not despair of the Divine aid, and of their future restoration. They, the exiled children of Israel, were addressed by the prophets "as the afflicted, the broken-hearted, the captives, the prisoners, the mourners of Zion." They alone stood in need of the prophetic consolatory promises, and to whom alone they had reference. 

Isaiah 61 reads like this:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
  because the LORD has anointed me
 to bring good news to the poor;
  he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
 to proclaim liberty to the captives,
  and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, 

(Jesus finishes here and sits down) 

        and the day of vengeance of our God;
     to comfort all who mourn;
 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
  to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
 the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
  the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
 that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
  the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.
 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
  they shall raise up the former devastations;
 they shall repair the ruined cities,
  the devastations of many generations.

It seems that Jesus was very deliberate in quoting only half the passage. He said that this part of the passage is fulfilled, but does not say that the latter half is fulfilled. The whole point was that only part of the passage was going to be fulfilled, predicting two comings. For Troki to keep insisting that everything must be fulfilled within one lifetime is just for him to beg the question. There is no indication in Tanakh that everything will be fulfilled at once.

As A. Lukyn Williams writes:

Every Jew who has read even a few pages of Talmud or Midrash knows perfectly well that quotations in those writings from the Hebrew Bible are almost as often inaccurate as accurate, But he does not, for that reason, turn round and refuse to have any more to do with books and writers which can make such mistakes. On the contrary, he is well acquainted with the fact that the more accurately persons know their Bible, and the more directly they have in their minds, when they are writing or arguing, persons who know the Scriptures as well as they do themselves, the more easily they omit words, or add clauses from other contexts, if, by doing so, they can either make their argument more concise, or can express it more clearly. With Jewish writers mere verbal accuracy in a quotation is almost of no importance at all. When a Jew, in arguing with a Gentile, pretends that it is, he is presuming on the Gentile's ignorance of things Jewish.

Again, let me reiterate that fulfillment does not entail prediction. You fulfill the law when you love your neighbor as yourself, even though Moses was not predicting your actions.

Regarding Isaiah, indeed Isaiah may have seen himself as the subject of this passage, yet even rabbinic authorities like David Kimchi and Saadia Gaon believed that the language was too extreme to be fulfilled by Isaiah, so they too sought a different subject for this passage.

As far as the alleged inaccuracies, remember that what we call the Masoretic Text did not exist at the time of Jesus. So Jesus is likely quoting from a different text, possibly a Targum. Anyway, here is the textual history of the Tanakh. The red lines indicate what versions were used as sources for other versions. Versions lower in the chart are the older versions of the text. So, for example, Aquila was the source text for Onkelos, which was written later.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 35

Luke 3:23, The genealogy of Jesus, as treated in this and the subsequent verses, is contradictory to that in Matthew 1. For Luke commences thus: "The list of the descent of Jesus"—"And Jesus was the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Malachi," etc. etc. In Matthew, where the origin of Joseph is traced back to Solomon, the Son of David, the enumeration of the ancestors of Joseph closes in the following manner:—"And Eliud begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat Matthan, and Matthan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus." We have already shown above that Matthew enumerates forty-two generations, from Abraham our father; but Luke counts only twenty-six. From these contrary statements one might fairly ask, which Joseph was the husband of Mary? Was it Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, as Luke supposes; or was it Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, the son of Eleazar, as Matthew supposes? If we are to believe the words of Luke, then the statement of Matthew must be incorrect, and vice versa. Luke, in tracing back the descent of Jesus to the first ancestor, says that Jesus was the son of Adam, the Son of God. Hence it would seem that Jesus has no better title to the designation of the Son of God, than every other descendant of Adam.

This is the common genealogy objection, which can be illustrated in this chart.


One observation is that Matthew is using the practice of gematria in his genealogy. Gematria is the practice of assigning the numerical value of the letters in a word in order to derive some significance. The numerical value of David is 14.
 
Compare this to Matthew 1:17 which states "So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations." Matthew is not saying that the lineage of each of these was exactly 14 people, but instead picks out the 14 most significant people in the lineage.

Risto Santala also has explanations of Matthew's use in terms of rabbinical writings. For example, tractate Avot states that there were 10 generations from Adam to Noah, and 10 from Noah to Abraham. Technically, this requires some trickery to get right.

The lineage of Noah is:
1. Adam
2. Seth
3. Enosh
4. Kenan
5. Mahalalel
6. Jerod
7. Enoch
8. Methuselah
9. Lamech
10. Noah

The lineage in Genesis 11 is:
1. Noah
2. Shem
3. Arphaxad
4. Shem
5. Salah
6. Eber
7. Peleg
8. Reu
9. Serug
10. Nahor
11. Terah
12. Abraham

So there are 10 generations from Adam to Noah if you count Adam and Noah. There are 10 generation from Noah to Abraham if you do not count Noah or Abraham.

As explained by Jewishroots.net "If the genealogies in Matthew and Luke were identical, then one of them would have been unnecessary. And since God is the ultimate economizer of space, logic dictates that the differences between the genealogies must be purposeful."

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 34

Luke 2:33, "And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him."

"The child tarried behind in Jerusalem, and his parents knew not of it." "And when they saw him they were amazed, and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing?" ver. 43, 48. Ibid, 4:22, "And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?" See also John 1:45, "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph"; and ibid. 6:42, "Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?"

These passages afford a complete refutation of the doctrine of the miraculous conception of Jesus, and thereby undermine the groundwork of the Christian faith.

This objection is kind of silly if you have been reading along. Repeatedly, Troki asserts that Jesus cannot be Messiah since he did not descend biologically from Joseph. Here, Troki argues that Jesus did descend from Joseph. The New Testament has called Jesus the son of Joseph, and why would we reckon things any differently?

Parents of adopted children are generally considered the mother and father of that child. One rabbi that I know has an adopted daughter. People in the community still talk of the rabbi as her father, even though he is not her biological father.

Again, according to Jewish and Roman law, Joseph would have been legally considered the father. Mary had good reasons to keep her virgin conception a secret, particularly that few if any people would have believed her anyway.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 33

We don't have a translation of this chapter from the original source, so all I can print is the rebuttal by A. Lukyn Williams:

(Luke 2:6, 7) "And it came to pass, that while they were there [at Bethlehem], the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son."

At this point our Rabbi makes a ridiculous mistake, saying that according to the Christians Mary conceived on December 8, and brought forth her Son on December 25, Christmas Day. Of course December 8 is the feast of the conception of Mary by her mother, as he confesses certain Christians told him. He forgets the other Christian Feast of the Annunciation on March 25. His mistake was doubtless due, as Gusset points out, to his ignorance of Latin, and his consequent assumption that the Latin conceptio answered exactly to the Hebrew הריון. For while the Latin Dies conceptionis Mariæ can only mean the day when Mary was conceived, he translated it by יום הריונה של מרים, which can only mean the day when Mary herself conceived. There is, however, this excuse for the Rabbi, that he may have heard something of the extravagant way in which the Roman Church employs on December 8 the words addressed to Mary by the angel at the Annunciation. 

 The translator of Chizzuk Emunah did not even translate this chapter, so embarassing was Troki's blunder. He confuses the church calendar for the events of history, and also shows that even someone of Troki's caliber can make enormous blunders and badly misunderstand what he is trying to criticize.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 32

Luke 1:26, There it is related that the angel Gabriel came as a messenger sent by God to Mary in her virgin state, when she was espoused to Joseph of the house of David, and that He announced to her she would conceive and bear a son, who would be holy, and be called a son of the highest; that the throne of David would be assigned to him by the Lord God for occupation, and that he would reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there should be no end.

The statement disagrees with those made in other parts of the New Testament, and cast strong suspicion on the veracity of a book asserted to be written under the influence of inspiration. If Mary had received such a divine message, why did she and her children refuse faith in, and obedience to that Son of God, and why did she and her offspring keep away from the circle of the disciples of him whom she had borne through the intervention of a miracle? See Mark 3:31. A marked contrast also appears between the words of Luke 1:26, and those in John 7:5, which we had occasion to quote in a former chapter, viz., "His brethren did not believe in him." Would it not have been the duty of the virgin-mother to inform her children what a strong claim her first-born had on their pious attachment to him? Again, why did Mary name her son "Jesus?" If he were to be named Emmanuel, according to the interpretation given to the famous passage in Isaiah, which is especially cited in Matthew 1:22, why did the angel hold out the never-fulfilled promise that Jesus would sit on the throne of David? Moreover, why was Jesus called the descendant of David, since it is alleged that he was not the offspring of Joseph, of the house of David, but was begotten of the Holy Ghost? The number of contradictions also is increased by the words of Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 28, for there it is said, "Then shall the son also himself be subject unto him, that put all things under him." This is an additional proof that the kingdom of Jesus is not intended to continue throughout eternity, but is to be only of a temporary nature; hence, we arrive at the conclusion, from the very authorities of the Christian faith, that the Father and the Son are totally distinct personages.

The fact that Troki concentrated very little of his criticism in the book of Mark shows his familiarity with New Testament criticism. Mark is favored by historians for his lack of embellishment. Now we are on to Luke, which is one of the more eloquently written books of the New Testament. Luke, at the beginning of his book, said that he had gathered his information from different sources, the way a historian does.

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

At the beginning of Luke, the angel Gabriel made an announcement to Mary that her son would eventually occupy David's throne. Notice what Gabriel did not say. He did not say when these events would take place. Troki would need to argue that Jesus is somehow disqualified from fulfilling these in the future, and I don't see how he could even begin to argue that.

A. Lukyn Williams responds with the following: "Yet it is not said, either here or in any other passage of Scripture, that she did not believe on Him. Surely her anxiety for Him was very natural. She showed lack of trust, it is true, but a mother's heart will ever yearn over the safety of her child. Neither can any reason be alleged why the fact that she knew He was the Messiah should weaken her anxiety. It might well increase it, as she came to perceive more clearly whither He was being led, and to what contumely and suffering He would be exposed. St. Peter, it, must be remembered, acknowledged Him to be the Messiah, and almost immediately after doing so, tried to persuade Him that He would not be called upon to endure suffering and death."

There were good reasons for Mary not to reveal her virginal conception. Who would believe it if she told them? Most people would just think her a liar or would question her sanity. She had good reasons for keeping this a secret.

Regarding the name of Jesus, Williams writes: "R. Isaac objects that Jesus is never called by the name "Immanuel" in the New Testament. But to make an objection of this kind is surely only to trifle with the subject, in a way unworthy of a thoughtful and candid mind. Jesus is, as a matter of fact, often called Immanuel in Christian parlance, and, whether He is called by this name or not, the word ("God with us") does correspond exactly to the nature and personality of Jesus according to the evidence of the New Testament, the only evidence which we possess."

What about his descent from Joseph? Again, according to Roman and Jewish law, Joseph was betrothed to be married to Mary, no other alleged human father could be found, so Joseph was considered by law to be the father of Jesus. We need to consider the idea of legal fiction. A legal fiction is an assumption that something occurred or someone or something exists which, in fact, is not the case, but that is made in the law to enable a court to equitably resolve a matter before it. A corporation is not a person, yet the law considers a corporation to be a person, as the law says.

The other objections are also pretty trivial. Jesus was to be called "God with us" and that is how the New Testament treats him. He is to this day worshiped as God, so how could anyone say that such a prophecy was not fulfilled?

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes the following claim about Jesus: "For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all."

This chapter says that all things will be in subjugation to Jesus, and that Jesus will be in subjugation to the Father. What was Paul supposed to say, that Jesus was some rogue deity? The Son has always submitted to the will of the Father, so it is not as though the reign of Jesus will end. Troki has also said that his shows the Son and the Father to be two different persons. This is true. Yet, they are both the same God. The statement "there is one God" is quite a different statement from "God is one person." The New Testament affirms the former, but strongly denies the latter.

Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 31

Mark 13:32, Jesus is made to say to his disciples, "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son but the Father." Here we have a clear proof that Jesus, who is called "the son of Mary," is not a God, seeing that he could not foretell events.

This verse is part of a larger passage in Mark, known as the Olivet Discourse, where Jesus was speaking about his return. Starting with the lesson of the fig tree, we get the following verses that precede this one.

"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

 The fact that the earliest followers of Jesus believed him to be God (as Larry Hurtado says: The earliest Christologies were the highest Christologies), and that the earliest heresies denied his divinity show that this quote would not have been fabricated by the church. It is theologically difficult, and therefore, from a secular historian's perspective, unquestionably an authentic saying by the historical Jesus.

In this passage, Jesus places himself on an ascending scale, humans, angels, the Son, and finally the Father. Jesus is claiming to be greater than all the prophets, all other humans, and even the angels.

The flaw here is that Troki confuses the full knowledge of Jesus with his self-limited knowledge that he had when he was incarnate. It's a bit like having a $100 bill and not being able to buy anything from a vending machine. Jesus, of course, could have reached into his omniscience to find the knowledge of these events, but would have violated his mission during the incarnation, which is to interact with us as one of us.

Since A. Lukyn Williams has a relatively short response, I will quote him as well:

R. Isaac urges that this passage shows that the Son is not God, seeing that He does not know the things of the future. We have already considered the Rabbi's objections in paragraph 114, but we may make a few additional remarks.

It would be well if the Rabbi had seriously considered the place which is here attributed to the Son. The order, it will be observed, is man, angels, the Son, the Father. Who or what, then, is the Son who is set above the angels? Scripture, in the Old Testament and the New alike, knows of no being who is above them save God Himself. When, therefore, Jesus sets the Son above them, as He does in this verse, He is claiming for the Son equality with God. Let our Jewish readers take this to heart, and endeavour to answer the question why He does so.

They will reply, however, whether they face the difficulties of that question or not, that Jesus of Nazareth attributes to the Son ignorance of the great event of the future, the Day of the LORD, and will repeat R. Isaac's argument. Yet no thoughtful Christian can be surprised that such ignorance is attributed to the Son. It is only in accordance with the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. For according to this we have no right to expect that the incarnate Son of God should know everything with such knowledge as can be expressed in human words. Probably indeed His knowledge as God was altogether in abeyance, this being one of the things which He put off from Him when He became man (see par 590).

But in any case there must have been many things known to the Son as God which it would be impossible for Him to receive into His intellect as Man, unless we make the human nature of the Lord Jesus an altogether monstrous and unhuman thing. It is true that we cannot well blame R. Isaac himself for not perceiving this somewhat evident truth, for in his days it had not been properly perceived by Christians. But every Jew of to-day ought to be free from the temptation to be surprised when Christians speak, or the New Testament itself speaks, of the Lord's ignorance. We must, if we are students of the Bible in either of its parts, be very jealous for the truth of the human nature of the Lord Jesus, and not minimize the reality of that nature in honour of the divine. It is plain that the knowledge of the time when the Day of the LORD will come has no practical connexion with holiness, either for the Lord Jesus or for ourselves, or again either for His or for our ministry on earth. In fact, to require that He should know it would be much on a par with the demand made to Him that He should show a portent out of heaven (Matt 16:1). The knowledge would be as unnatural as the action. Both would be altogether contrary to the limitations of human nature, as well as to the methods of work by which from the very first the Messiah determined to accomplish His task of bringing salvation to the world (Matt 4:1-11).