What do Messianics believe about Solo Scriptura?

[Grego]

Just a curious question from a Catholic, where in Jewish history is 'sola scriptura' adhered to, if at all!!

[stone]

So you mean like here in Acts 10

28 And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.


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This is when Peter gives the interpretation of his vision, meaning of the vision is that it is ok for the jew to sit and eat with the gentile;

where as, others interpret it differently than Peter, who was given the vision and claim that by this vision it is ok to eat what father said is not to be called food.


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9 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: 10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, 11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: 12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. 14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. 15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. 16 This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven. 17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon's house, and stood before the gate, 18 And called, and asked whether Simon, which was surnamed Peter, were lodged there.


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Is this the kind of Sola Scriptura you reffer to, meaning that what it written is the final authority, or do you mean what a man interprets of that which is written in our scriptures, that is authored by the jews?

[Grego]

Sola scriptura, ie God , Bible and Me = truth and salvation .

No-one is going to tell me anything , teach me anything 'my interpretation is enough' kind of thinking.

And 'tradition is not important' is another aspect of sola scriptura aswell.

Do the Jews have a teaching tradition is what I am asking?

[stone]

Sounds like your asking about judaism and not messianic judaism.


The orthodox judaism does not see that Y-shua is the messiah. This messianic judaism knows that he is.

We of messianic judaism keep the same traditions, as far as the festivals go. We observe passover, and not easter. We observe the festivals commanded by father, as written in the scriptures.

There are traditions of rabbinical judaism, some messianics observe that, i myself do not.

As far as sola scriptura, and tradition goes, if your going to be sola scriptura, you should at least observe the festivals that are written in your bibles, otherwise you are not sola scriptura, but of course many make the claim, and truely are not.

[Eben Abram]

Shalom Alecheim,

Maybe I can help Grego:

Sola Scriptura as Wikipedia defines: Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by scripture alone") was a foundational doctrinal principle of the Protestant Reformation held by the reformer Martin Luther. It is the assertion that the Bible is the sole source—some would assert inerrant source—of all Christian doctrine and is considered the basis on which all Protestant Christian teachings are derived. It is also the assertion that the Bible as God's written word is self-authenticating, clear (perspicacious) to the rational reader, and its own interpreter ("Scripture interprets Scripture"). The key implication of the principle is that interpretations of how to understand and apply the Scriptures do not have the same authority as the Scriptures themselves; hence, the ecclesiastical authority is subject to correction by the Scriptures, even by an individual member of the Church. (Luther: "a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it.") The intention of the Reformation was to correct the perceived errors of the Catholic Church by appeal to the uniqueness of the Bible's authority and to reject Christian tradition as a source of original authority in addition to the Bible. Sola scriptura may be contrasted with "Prima scriptura," which holds that even though the Bible is the primary source of doctrine it is improved by reference to other sources. Sola scriptura is now considered one of the five pillars of the Protestant Reformation.

Since Luther was Objecting to the current codification of Catholic Thought,......you might say Y'shua came and debunked the current codification of Rabbinical thought of the Prushim, Hasmonean, Greco, Sadducean, Purist, and Roman influenced Jews of His Day.

Every Jew is told he has a Yid and as such will return to the One that created Him. Whether we are told personally that is a rather fun topic....,

BUT your question is does Messianic Judaism have as it were a Sola Scriptura? Weeeelll if honest, most Jewish Beleivers are a pretty independent lot. If in one accord it's a miracle so G-d has to send His Spirit to bless (wink) and non messianic jews say if two Jews could agree on Shabbes about anything then Messiah would come.

So in fact we all tend to acknowledge an afrmative to certain aspect of a acknowledgment of Faith, but rarely is there complete accord for we are all told to Study and to Know G-d, Love Our enemies, Brethren etc and somehow learn along the way......

Messianic Judaism in it's oragnizational formaulae over the years for he plurality who attend conferences and meetings hold an affinity to a form of sola but as always can reference a earlier Hebraic form of the same cause and effect as Luther had with Sola Scriptura.

Popularity and prosperity often has dictated the more obvious current version of revisionary ideas that come along, but if you have lived through it all you see a repitition of truth and repitition of error occurs often.

Sholem Asch wrote a book called "The Nazarene" that almost got him excommunicated so to speak as a Jew that actually shows the earliest "Hebraic" usage of words like Christian and Eben Nezer for Ebenezer etc and often in modern groups they "feel" as though they are new or something that hasn't occurred before.

Jusdaism has had it's form fo Sola Scriptura over and over again and though called by another name with other people invovled, the Messianic Movement has too.

(smile) but then again...we're all human aren't we?

When Sola Scriptura can take you to messiah, I suppose it can't be all bad....(smile)...so too with other things we might use to get to Him till He can help to show us the WAY.

Alecheim Shalom

Eben Abram

[visionary]

`I would personally say that I am not sola scripta for I have The Book of Enoch from which Jude refers to
Jude, "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him" (Jude 14-15). inspired by the Spirit of God, quotes from the book of Enoch, "Behold he comes with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon them, and destroy the wicked, and reprove all of flesh for every thing which the sinful and ungodly have done, and committed against him" (The Book of Enoch, chapter 2).


and come to understand better the mixing of seed"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were GIANTS in the earth in those days; and also, after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown" (Gen.6:1-4).Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century, tells us in his epic work The Antiquities of the Jews:

"Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honors to God which were appointed them, nor had they any concern to do justice towards men. But for what degree of zeal they had formerly shewn for virtue, they now shewed by their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their enemy; for MANY ANGELS OF GOD accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength, for the tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants. But Noah was very uneasy at what they did; and, being displeased at their conduct, persuaded them to change their dispositions and their acts for the better; -- but, seeing that they did not yield to him, but were slaves to their wicked pleasures, he was afraid they would kill him, together with his wife and children, and those they had married; so he departed out of that land" (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, I,3,1).



Another example.
"And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat" (Gen.19:1-3).And the Lord did passover and judgment was set.

Notice! This event occurred right around Passover, in the spring. Lot was observing the Feast of Unleavened Bread, about 400 years before God revealed this Feast to Israel during the time of Moses, after their lengthy sojourn in Egypt as slaves. Evidently, the knowledge of the annual sabbaths, together with the weekly sabbath, had become LOST while Israel was enslaved in Egypt! The annual holy days of God, however, like the weekly Sabbath, go back to Creation! We read in the book of Jubilees, a very important book in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, "And the Lord set the sun as a great sign upon the earth for days, sabbaths, months, feast (days), years, sabbaths of years, jubilees, and for all of the (appointed) times of the years" (Jubilees 2:9).

Now I ask you, Is the modern versions without the other books sola scripta?

[Eben Abram]

Shalom Alecheim

I'll take my chips and call your Book of Enoch.....

(smile) I personally like the book of Enoch for reading material, in the same way I like The City of G-d a strictly Catholic Mary Blue Army version of Heaven and the Book of Joseph and the Book of Jesus early childlhood.

Interesting reading, thought provoking but I choose carefully my foundation and prove all instances of what I consider vald for my basis for truth.

Under my personal scutiny, all my reading materials failed in logic as I read them , but gave me much to think about, I read mishnah torah much for the same reason I read any commnetary....., to provoke my thoughts and challenge me to reexmine my absolute stand on The W-rd as I have been given in my Walk with G-d which stood my examination and more importantly the Sages and Scholars that have hightlighted to me it's accuracy, which I spent years to approve by seeking to disprove.

If a Person CHOOSES to beleive in Rabbinical Judaism as more than commentary, than they usually ascribe to a personal interpretation that has through time become accepted by a majority vote more than a absolute critical analysis and as such should be honored INSIDE thier framework of beleif.

I would have a hard time putting the Dogma, which it is a dogma from catholocism to Lutheranism and developed in Protestantism as a Doctrine into a place of comparison with the Book of Enoch....

I try in Comprehending the mind set behind words like Sola Scriptura to apply in like terms in Judaism, Chrisitanity, and/or Messianic Judaism, and or Messianic Thought the comperable thematic discussion..

For me though I must deign to comment though I may refenece in external source many times in discussion, I do not attach the same signficance on the source material as I do to the W-rd of G-d.

If Jude quoted Enoch, as he did, He did not refer to it or imply equal significance else we would have included and not precluded the Book from inlcusion.

I have the Book of Mormon but when I compared Doctrines and Covenants to Mormon theology I found contradiction that didn't fit the reported source so I concluded contradition was apparent.

There are contradictions to Enoch that you have to choose either the source was Human and thus we can enjoy Enoch as Insighful reading but not contra indicative to the W-rd, or we have to like Visionary, accept the Book of Enoch and be subject to our own interpretation of scripture and thus subject to our won fallibility or frankly ....accuracy.

For Visionary I understand your point of view, I do not agree for myself of the basis for it, but I do acknowledge a Strong arguement you present and reason for it based on your post.

Most Early Messianic Beleivers, in thier Definition of statement of fatih acknowledged a Sola Scriptura reformatted and or reworded formulae on the Web in early postings which almost ten years old now were roughly 200 hundred listed congregations with about 30 or more that were either by statement or by stating obvious contra-indicators, were not in any form Sola Scriptura and in fact 11 very large ones were rewriting scriptures in many unusual applications.

I have been gone for quite awhile so my info is dated.....(smile) and I am too old for statistical analysis anymore.

I do like the book of Enoch though Visionary, it's interesting.

Alecheim Shalom

For those who don't know:

The Book of Enoch, written during the second century B.C.E., is one of the most important non-canonical apocryphal works, and probably had a huge influence on early Christian, particularly Gnostic, beliefs. Filled with hallucinatory visions of heaven and hell, angels and devils, Enoch introduced concepts such as fallen angels, the appearance of a Messiah, Resurrection, a Final Judgement, and a Heavenly Kingdom on Earth. Interspersed with this material are quasi-scientific digressions on calendrical systems, geography, cosmology, astronomy, and meteorology.

This etext has been prepared specially for sacred-texts, and is a great improvement over other versions on the Internet, with the introduction, correct verse numbering, page numbers from the 1917 edition, and intact critical apparatus.

Here is the Web site: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/ (http://http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/)

Prove ALL things.....

Eben

[zhilan]

Do you follow the Talmud or only the Torah?

[visionary]

Do you follow the Talmud or only the Torah?Definitely torah

[HadassahSukkot]

Do the Jews have a teaching tradition is what I am asking?

I'm going to try and say this as nicely as possible.. :D (I'm scared I won't word it right, so please have patience with me :hug: )

There is a long standing of tradition of teaching, as well as interpretation methods.

There's PaRDeS, which is a method of understanding scripture-- take the scripture at the plain level, examine the passage itself & the time it was written in, then go and find surrounding scriptures that have the same method, and then take and study the word even down to the letters to find out what they mean.

Then you have Dynamic and Thematic Analysis which are used in conjunction with PaRDeS, and then you have the Tamud and Midrashim.. ;)

Maybe this link might help a teensy http://www.netivyah.org.il/English%20Web/MidrashaArticles/midrashic_hermeneutics.html

as well as http://www.wisdomintorah.com/study.htm

:)

[HadassahSukkot]

Oh yeah, and I wanted to add - Messianics come from all walks of life. We all have our baggage, Ideas, Opinions and understanding of Scripture.

Do I hold to Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide? No.

We are so far removed from the culture and times that we have to reinsert ourselves there. Sometimes that means we have to read other books and really nail down the history to understand and that lightbulb to go off.

I also have Enoch, Yasher, Jubilees and Baruch. I haven't yet found anything therein that doesn't agree with scripture. I've been able to match up all of Enoch with scripture and my copy has notes all over it. Sadly though, I have lent it out to a friend and it hasn't come home yet.

Same with Yasher, I did the same thing, and lent it out.

I follow Y'shua. He followed Torah, and many traditions we have agree and compliment the Torah.. those I follow.

Traditions with blatant disregard for Torah however, I do not follow.

[plum]

to put it simply... I think most Messiancs are not Sola Scriptura... but more like Prima Scriptura. We value both tradition and Torah/Scripture, but we absolutely prioritize Torah over all. So nothing coming out of tradition can or should contradict what was already laid out in the Scripture.

At least that's my view.

[Steve Petersen]

This question assumes that we all read Scripture the same way.

Everyone has a set of assumptions that color their interpretation of Scripture.

What meaning does the concept of 'sola scriptura' have given this fact?

[Kalanit]

to put it simply... I think most Messiancs are not Sola Scriptura... but more like Prima Scriptura. We value both tradition and Torah/Scripture, but we absolutely prioritize Torah over all. So nothing coming out of tradition can or should contradict what was already laid out in the Scripture.


I agree! :)

[HadassahSukkot]

ah! Great point Steve!!!!

Since going to a Messianic congregation, my ideas and presumptions of scripture have changed.

The best way I can explain it is that i have to walk in, check my brains at the door and say "G-d, please - YOU show me how I am to understand this and what I need to learn this time. I don't understand anything on my own... You guide me and teach me, and don't let me fall into false teaching.."

I've read a ton of things, and don't agree with all of them, but have been able to glean certain truths from each - and each time i read scripture, I find something new, even if I read it 100 times... and it broadens my understanding of what I already knew, or changes my "presuppositions".


Steve, please keep going.. :)

[stone]

woohoo! :thumbsup:

I've had dreams that line right up with the book of Enoch, and if it weren't for my dreams and visions that all come to pass, i probably would have blown the book off, but its just on the back burner for now. I'm working on something else right now. ;)

[Eben Abram]

Shalom Alecheim

B'H

I am glad those who know they agree or do not also have a voice to assert the value that so few place on each other.

Their personal study.

That I applaud and enjoy about this forum, so many voices I recall some used to say 2 jews three synagogues.

Whether a Berean or a Judean the L-rd is honored by all those who do challenge, study and apply thier knowledge base inot seeking Him...Praise the L-rd.

With all the support I may have to go back to Web research and see how many Messianic groups I can find and then if they have a Assertation of Faith ,

NOT that a congregation of Messianic Jews and/or beleivers gathered together all agree, for I have seen we are all on a learning curve, but I applaud diversity and distinction especially if it cause the individual to study.

Which makes this forum fun and interesting, I am glad we are not all of the same opinion for I fear many mistakes in Christendom and Judaism we made by those who simply did not

Study.

Alecheim Shalom

Eben