Seaghán Ó MurchúWilliam, in my bible study circle today, we discussed a passage where a member then went to retrieve a web reference from what I (correctly in hindsight) sensed was a Messianic Christian practitioner. This got me wondering. In the spirit of Hebraic study of Judaism as Christians, do we approach such interpretations from Messianic Christians as preferable, or not? For I get an uneasy sense that a Messianic reading of Scripture is taking the Word out of its context of the pages and framework within which the Philos Project conceives its approach, in the context of a Jewish people waiting for a Moshiach who has not yet arrived. Is this contradictory?
So is it ‘backasswords’ to pardon my expression, to look to a Messianic reading as it has its cake and eats it too, to mix metaphors? Whereas someone contributing to our lessons from, say Yeshiva U or Modern Orthodoxy or even present-day Chabad or the Hasidim might instruct us to turn to Torah insights informed by those among the Jewish people who have not accepted Jesus as their saviour. I remain instinctively suspicious of a Jewish parsing of teaching that does not have the same mindset as that of a Christian, but then, on the other hand, due to converts, and the long legacy which we all share somewhere sooner or later of entering into a Christian covenant due to what our ancestors did, or among us now, as some in Pathfinder appear to have done when converting to Christianity…we’re all engaging in our quest for salvation from a post-Jewish starting point.
This is confusing me. I’ve been looking for any insight as I progress through Pathfinder. But lacking a larger awareness of the scope of discussions, as only the newest tip of each iceberg can be glimpsed for a limited time before our content melts away from the collective sight of those enrolled past, present, future, I have not so far seen any mention of this issue. Is it what social scientists call a ‘category error’ in our attempts to reason?
