Here is the big problem with that, and allow me to demonstrate with an analogy:
Let's say I write a letter to you about a baseball game I saw, and I mentioned that a runner stole home base. 2,000 years from now someone digs up the letter, uses a future concordance to decipher it, and figures out the words. They conclude that a runner actually "stole" home base and was therefore some sort of thief who took something.
THE POINT is, without the cultural context, the words mean nothing. Sure, this future-person correctly deciphered the words, but without American cultural understanding, they did not get the meaning that I was trying to convey in my letter.
109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.
110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."
Yes, I understand that, however you should apply that same principle to the overall context of what I was trying to demonstrate to the poster GT. You obviously jumped into this discussion on the tail end and not from the beginning
She said 'Messiah' means 'GOD'.
I said it didn't and attempted to demonstrate the evolving application of the terms 'mashiah', 'messiah' and 'christos' in the scriptures.
The LORD called the Persian King Cyrus His Maschiach, which is the same word used of Israel's future greater Son of David, Jesus of Nazareth. Obviously, GOD was not saying that Cyrus was Jesus of Nazareth.
Yeshua Mashiach is unique and distinct from all others called Mashiach in the history of Israel and He is GOD. But I still affirm that the word 'Mashiach' or Christos in the LXX do not in themselves mean GOD.
GT was trying to prove that Jesus is GOD because of the word Messiah. She was equating the words 'messiah/christ' with the word 'GOD'. My argument was that Jesus Christ is indeed GOD, but the terms Messiah/Christ do not prove it. Messiah/Christ means 'anointed'. One must use other portions of Scripture which describe GOD's ultimate Messiah to support one's argument that Jesus Christ is GOD.
Note my signature verse.
GOD plainly says that the one called 'the branch' will have the name YHVH. To me, this is one of the plainest proofs from scripture that Jesus Christ is GOD.
YHVH can only be referring to the one true GOD.
The first use of terms related to the word 'Messiah' was Jacob's 'anointing' of a literal rock which he stood up after a night of using it as a head rest. That literal rock was certainly not Jesus of Nazareth literally, but is no doubt a cryptic metaphorical prophetic reference to Him.
Again... the word 'messiah' does not mean the word 'GOD'.
The word 'messiah' is not interchangeable with the words 'GOD' or 'YHVH'.
