> Probably not the Hebrew Bible, because you later
> quote Hebrews on the one hand, and suggest that my doubting the sources
> of the book of Ezra is a theological position.
HH: Doubting is a theological issue. Quoting the Book of Hebrews shows
that some Israelites of the first century believed Haggai meant a
certain thing. They're two thousand years closer to the reality than we
are.
> To put the point further, the book of Hebrews may be in your
> theological view, a 1st century book allowing us to see the views of the
Jews
> at that time. But for me, it is just a book, and you'd have to show me that
> it was composed in the 1st century, that it was representative of the views
of
> Jews, and that the particular passage you are quoting is original to that
book
> and are not a later addition by, just for example, 3rd century Christians.s
HH: I don't have to show you anything. And really, the impulse to find
the truth must come from you. Seek and you will find. But if you insist
on others proving everything for you, you may not find much.
> It is akin to a political
> commentator writing an analysis and probable forecast regarding the
President
> of the United States, and yet when years later some particulars of that
forecast
> don't seem to you to have taken place, you'd conclude that the commentator
> was speaking symbolically of some period thousands of years later and using
> the President only symbolically.
HH: You could look at things that way, but there is a strong current of
such prophecies throughout the Bible, and particularly in the
contemporaneous Book of Zechariah. They point forward to a Davidic ruler
in the future.
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