@JonEricson Do you think that maybe disobedience to God leads to death?

If one disobeys God, one may not observe the effects until years later, until that person succumbs to death.

@Jas3.1 the one thing I don't see in the priv documentation is how to get there. If you click on the "review" link you'll see "tabs" labelled "Review" and "Tools", defaulting to the former. Click on the latter and go exploring. :-)

Also, welcome to the club @Jas3.1!

@Anonymous the text doesn't say "immediately". But if that question hasn't already been asked on the main site (I don't think it has, but check), I encourage you to ask it.

@Anonymous Genesis raises lots of questions compared to other books (at least in Tanakh), in my experience. And produces more-voluminous commentaries. :-)

@Anonymous there is no belief requirement to participate here. Nor, for that matter, on Mi Yodeya or C.SE, though both of those sites have doctrinal baselines. For example, you're welcome to ask your Jewish questions on Mi Yodeya, so long as you accept that you are going to get answers from a Jewish perspective and there are certain sources that are accepted there as baseline. I assume something similar could be said for C.SE. [cont]

But, of course, if you have questions about the text rather than theology, you should bring them here. :-)

@Jas3.1 I notice that you didn't challenge Kazark's answer, which brings no proof from Hosea yet claims the burden of proof is on those who say it's not Jesus. Any particular reason that got a free pass from you?

@MonicaCellio Thanks, this is what I was looking for.

@MonicaCellio Yes: the wording of the question. The question essentially asks whether it is possible to interpret it as Jesus, and Kazark essentially says "I suppose it's possible... if a person wanted to argue that it's not possible, the burden of proof would be on them." I think that is accurate.

@MonicaCellio Let me draw an analogy from the opposite perspective. Suppose a question asked "Is it possible to interpret Psalm 22 without seeing it as a prophecy about Jesus." Now suppose that Chronica Cellio (the Christian Monica Cellio) said "no." Of course the non-Christians on the site would be flabbergasted, and would want to know what in the text prevents a non-Christian interpretation. Now suppose Jazark (the Jewish Kazark) said "if not, the burden lies with the nay-sayers" I would up-vote

@MonicaCellio Example: "Is it possible to interpret the Torah without seeing prophecies about Jesus in every passage?" Yes. Jewish interpreters do it all the time. If a Christian wanted to argue "no" they would have their work cut out for them. How do you prove that "prophecies about Jesus" is the only possible view of the Torah?

@MonicaCellio Example: "Is it possible to interpret Moses as a type of Jesus?" Yes. Christian interpreters do it all the time. If a Jew wanted to argue "no" they would have their work cut out for them. How do you prove that it is impossible to interpret Moses as a type of Jesus when countless esteemed Christian scholars have arrived at that exact conclusion?

@MonicaCellio ...anyway, I'm sure you get my point. It has to do with the wording of the question, not with our differing religions. Actually, I would be fine with a "no" answer (though I am a Christian) as long as it could be proven from the text that this could not be a prophecy about Jesus. I'm not one of those folks that thinks every verse in the Bible is a prophecy about Jesus.

@MonicaCellio ...but if your argument is that it could not be a prophecy about Jesus because the text anticipates God coming down from heaven and His presence dwelling in a physical tabernacle... well, that doesn't really disprove anything. That would be like me saying that Isaiah 53 has to be about Jesus because it predicts a Suffering Servant. Actually, Jews also anticipated a suffering servant, but not like Jesus, so that would be a bad argument. It's the same sort of thing here.

@MonicaCellio (or if you don't like the Isa. 53 example, consider the Prophet of Moses, or the David to come, etc.)

@MonicaCellio Out of curiosity, you said:

> If you made the sweeping claim you suggested, I would respond with the single counter-example needed to disprove it

...what is your counter-example?

(I'm not looking for a debate, I'm just curious since you mentioned it.)

@MonicaCellio In the NRSV translation of the text (Genesis 2:17), it says "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." I am not sure if a day really means, you know, a day.

@MonicaCellio Wouldn't questions about the text go under biblical hermeneutics?

@Jas3.1 ah. I see what you're saying now. (And ping @JonEricson; we're discussing your Hosea question's wording.) Thank you for explaining. Kazark's answer is poor IMO because it basically just says "yeah, it's possible (and of course I say it is)", and then goes on to say "if you don't believe it's Jesus you have to prove it", which comes across to me as combattive (hence my DV). And maybe that influenced my answer and shouldn't have.

I think it is obvious from the text that a much more plausible interpretation is meant, one that actually uses themes introduced prior to Hosea rather than adding a whole new thing. God incarnate is a foreign concept to the Tanakh writers and audience. God descending to the tabernacle? Been there done that. God sending bounty in the form of rain? Explicitly promised.

I'll revise my answer. There is a limit to what I can do given the question phrasing, but I'll see if I can make it more palatable for you. Thanks for bringing it up.

@Jas3.1 I didn't have a specific one in mind -- just that if you did make that claim, I'd go browsing and expect to have a counter-example in short order. You only need one to disprove that statement, hence my "the single", but I didn't mean to imply that there was a particular smoking gun. Sorry.

.

@Anonymous oh right -- "on that day" (or "in the day"). Since per the text they didn't die on that very day, there are (at least) two possibilities: that's not what "day" means, or that's not what "die" means. A question about the contradiction between the decree and what actually happened would be a fine one for our site. I don't think that's been asked before, but as always, check.

But a quickie now: some (including many Jews) understand it as "now can die" (would have been immortal otherwise), and as I understand it Christians see it as the soul "dying" (not being eligible for heaven) even if the body didn't, and not just for Adam but everybody to follow. Jews don't believe that people are born into sin and must be redeemed.

.

@Jas3.1, @JonEricson, one more thought: the question title asks "is it Jesus"; the question body asks "could it be". I answered the question in the title.

@Monica Thanks. Btw, I think I forgot to mention we are moving house in case anyone is wondering where I've disappeared to :)

@JackDouglas oh, I had wondered but assumed you were off on holiday or something. Good luck with the move and with finding all your stuff again! For me the biggest challenge of a move is that intermediate state where not all the boxes are unpacked yet but you need to go on with life. :-)

@MonicaCellio I'm still struggling with your answer because it is clearly "from a Jewish perspective" but does not specify this. The bulk of your answer could be copied and pasted into a "yes" answer from a Christian.

@Jas3.1 many answers on the site are from a Christian perspective and don't declare that. Why can't my sources and interpretation stand on their own? It's not like I'm hiding anything.

@MonicaCellio By the logic you use in your question no OT passage is a prophecy about Jesus. So any question that asks, "Could OT prophecy X be a prophecy about Jesus" you could simply say "no, because that was a foreign concept, etc."

@MonicaCellio That is fair. The difference in this case is that your reasoning for why it could not be a prophecy about Jesus is exactly the same as a Christian's logic would be for why it is definitely a prophecy about Jesus.

@Jas3.1 that is true, and part of why it is better to ask "what does X mean" than "does X mean Y".

@MonicaCellio Although, for the record, I wish we'd adopt a site policy that we always identify our perspective and hermeneutic up-front in our answers. I try to do this whenever I remember.

@Jas3.1 but the Christian requires extra-textual support, while mine is all from within Hosea's context. In other words, the Christian answer must be based in doctrine.

@Jas3.1 and since the top answer on this question comes from someone who has said he will not do so, I'm particularly not inclined to do so here.

@MonicaCellio The Christian appeals to the complete Christian canon, and uses a Christian hermeneutic, just as the Jew appeals to the exclusion of the Christian NT and uses a Jewish hermeneutic.

@Jas3.1 this may be a tangent, but I've heard from credible-seeming sources that the church took a while to agree that Jesus was God. That could only happen if the Christian texts weren't clear about that. Where in the Christian books does it actually say Jesus is God? That would be required to make the interpretation of Hosea you propose. That's why I'm saying it's a doctrinal answer.

@Jas3.1 the Jew excludes the Christian books for the same reason the Christian excludes the Qur'an.

@MonicaCellio I have to leave in a minute, but I'll come back to discuss the rest of this, but for now, here is the main trouble I'm having with your answer: A Jew would say "No, because X" and a Christian would say "Yes, because X, which matches perfectly with NT passages Y, Z, etc." and the X is the same evidence. That indicates to me that X does not logically necessitate "no", but rather, depends on perspective, hermeneutic, etc. Thus, if you are going to say "X, and therefore no"...

...I think the question should have some indication of the presuppositions and/or hermeneutic that leads to this conclusion

gotta go, I'll be back later

@Jas3.1 so here's the problem I'm having. A mathematician could say "1+1+1 = 3" and be talking about arithmetic, and a Christian could then come along and say "this is proof of the trinity", which has nothing to do with what the mathematician said. Again, I am answering the "is" in the title of the question. Can someone nonetheless reuse the argument thus far and take it in a completely different direction? Sure, and I acknowledged that in my answer, but that doesn't make it so.

@Jas3.1 agreed.

@Jas3.1 TTYL.

Speaking from the fields of neuroscience and psychology, I am well aware that our brains are equipped with the ability to detect conflicts, and that our perceptions are not only governed by bottom-up processing, but also top-down processing, meaning that our experience and knowledge of the world will dictate how we perceive the world. I believe that the same thing lies true in the field of biblical hermeneutics.

Maybe we should thank God for giving us the ability to understand the Bible and ourselves, including the means to understand it!

Maybe we should also be humble with our interpretations too and lower ourselves below God, so that our arrogance will not blind us.

With patience, humility, love, and understanding, maybe it would be possible to uncover what God is trying to say in his interactions with people in the Bible.

Please note: when I use the term "his" as a pronoun for God, do not assume that that is God's gender. As a matter of fact, I am not sure if God is male or female, but I think God is male, because I have heard that God may have had a female consort Asherah.

I wonder who the other heavenly beings may be in Genesis when God creates the world. Since Genesis is a traditional ancient Israelite narrative, I am going to guess that the other heavenly beings may be referring to the other gods before the ancient Israelites may have worshiped one - the God of all gods.

@MonicaCellio I think it is worth considering that the person asking the question is a Christian, and obviously considers it a possibility that it is a prophecy about Jesus or he wouldn't be asking the question. So I'm not sure it makes sense to post an answer that essentially follows the logic that Christianity is nonsensical, it is irrational to see anything in the Tanakh as pointing to Jesus, and thus, Hosea's prophecy (or any prophecy for that matter) could not possibly be about Jesus.

@Jas3.1 have you read the current version of my answer?

@MonicaCellio yes

@Jas3.1 so where is the part where it says that Christianity is nonsensical, irrational, etc? I said that the in-context explanation is more likely to be correct. That's pretty different from what you're saying I said.

@Jas3.1 not just because I am a Jew, but also because I believe context means something and that later texts don't just get to say "nah, that doesn't mean that; that means this other thing" without some sort of support. Christians believe that support is there, but belief is personal, not provable.

@MonicaCellio I wasn't commenting on the text of your answer, but on the rational behind it.

@Jas3.1 I thought we were talking about my answer here. I'm not really interested in having an argument with you about the merits of Christianity; I don't think it would be productive.

@Jas3.1 as for this, I think I'm going to wait for the asker to provide some feedback before I try to assess what he thinks of my answer.

@MonicaCellio Suppose Samaritans were still around and their beliefs were still a popular religious tradition. Now suppose someone asked a question on this site about whether Dt. 12:5 could be a prophecy about Jerusalem. A Jew, who holds the full Tanak as Scripture, would think that it is a prophecy about Jerusalem, based on other Scriptures. A Samaritan would think that it is not. (See here.)...

...but on BH.SE if a Jew posted the question and asked if it could be talking about Jerusalem, the correct answer would be "yes" because that is possible, especially if you are a Jew and embrace the full Tanakh as Scripture. If a Samaritan said "no because nowhere in the Torah is there any indication that God would choose Jerusalem, and my evidence is Dt. 12:5" that would be a bad answer imo.

@Jas3.1 remember the title of the question we're talking about. "Could it be" and "is it" are two very different questions. They're both there, one in the title and one in the body, and that's a problem.

@MonicaCellio Sure, but the body is generally where you get the fuller picture of what the person is asking.

@Jas3.1 but the title is the summary.

@MonicaCellio I just have a hard time with the idea that a Christian (who believes there are OT prophecies about Jesus) was asking for a Jewish answer that presupposes that no prophecy in the OT could possibly be about Jesus. That just doesn't make sense to me.

@Jas3.1 @JonEricson has generally been pretty broad in the kinds of answers he's interested in. For other askers I might suggest migrating the question to C.SE, where you go if you want Christian-only perspectives.

@MonicaCellio But again, the main thing I was trying to point out is that your "proof" that it couldn't possibly be about Jesus relies on exactly the same evidence as a Christian's proof that it is about Jesus, based on the Christian canon, hermeneutic, etc.

@MonicaCellio I don't think the question is out of place here, I think your answer is. I'm probably sounding more militant than I am, but my whole point is that a "no" answer would be fine (even for a Christian) if there was something in the text that prevented this interpretation. But you are relying on Jewish presuppositions, not elements in the text that would prevent even a responsible Christian interpreter from drawing that conclusion.

@MonicaCellio The question has more to do with Hermeneutics, but your answer has more to do with Judaism.

@Jas3.1 my answer provides an interpretation that is consistent with history and context. By choosing one answer yes, I'm saying another answer is less likely. So what? People do that all the time. I responded to your complaint about the strength of my original answer and modified it; my answer allows other possibilities, but IMO rightly says there is a better answer.

@Jas3.1 you are sounding pretty militant, yes. Enough so that I'm on the verge of giving up on this discussion.

@Jas3.1 show me where my current answer says "no"

@MonicaCellio Sorry about that... chat isn't the best means for conveying tone, etc. I'm not at all intending to be aggressive or offensive or anything like that.

@Jas3.1 my answer has to do with the text of the Tanakh. That is a valid answer here.

@MonicaCellio Honestly we're touching on a general frustration that I have with the answers on this site (Christians included) that we pretend that our answers are objective truth, when in fact all interpretations are influenced by theology, bias, preconceptions, culture, etc. I'd love to see us as a site move toward identifying these things for the readers up-front like Christianity.SE urges its answerers to do.

If you (generally speaking) are using a historical-grammatical hermeneutic, say that at the outset. If you're going to apply an allegorical method of interpretation, warn us up-front.

Of course, that would require that people actually be aware of their bias, and be faithful to their approach, and know the terminology for identifying it, but that's another problem altogether.

@Jas3.1 declaring an approach up front would be good. I thought your original desire was for people to declare their religions up front, and that seems unhelpful to me.

But that's a discussion for meta, where more people can see it and it has some durability.

@MonicaCellio Yes, but wouldn't you agree that a Jew is going to approach the text with a bias that nothing is about Jesus, while a Christian is going to approach the text with a bias that anything Messianic is about Jesus, etc.? Religion does influence our approach.

Nobody writes in a vacuum, about anything. We are human beings who have preferences and biases and aversions and areas of knowledge and ignorance. That's true of any place where humans interact, not just this site.

@MonicaCellio I know, I'm just avoiding meta.

@MonicaCellio Yep.

It has definitely been helpful though on Christianity.SE to know up-front what those biases are whenever possible.

@Jas3.1 do all Christians agree? Do all Jews? Atheists? At best a label can provide some hints, but it can actually be misleading -- a "Jew for Jesus" (sic) who identifies himself as a Jew will at best confuse people, for instance.

@Jas3.1 and if somebody makes a logical argument based on the text and not specifically grounded in a theology, because e.g. he's an atheist scholar? What should he call himself then?

@MonicaCellio Sure. But in a question about whether a prophecy could be about Jesus, it would be helpful to know if the person answering is a Jew who presupposes that nothing is about Jesus... or even if the answerer is one of those Christians that presupposes that everything is about Jesus. Don't you think?

@MonicaCellio idk... historical-grammatical, atheist?

@Jas3.1 just FYI, since I think meta is the place to have this discussion, I'm not going to spend too much energy on it here. Why the aversion to meta?

@MonicaCellio eh... it's hard to explain

@Jas3.1 as a non-Christian I don't know which Christians presuppose that and which don't (even assuming it's denominational rather than personal), so unless the post starts out by saying "I presuppose that everything is about Jesus", it doesn't help.

And if the answer makes a sound argument I really don't need to care about that, and if the answer doesn't make a sound argument then that background doesn't redeem it.

@MonicaCellio it's sort of the same reason why I'd prefer to talk with a person privately one-on-one than to do a publicized debate... actually, I would have preferred to chat about this in a private room, but I was too lazy to set one up before it ended up here :-)

@Jas3.1 nothing's private on SE anyway, except for moderator business.

I've got to drop off now. I'll check in later.

@MonicaCellio I'm not suggesting that "Christian" be the end of the explanation, only part of it. "Christian" would tell you that the person is open to certain possibilities. Then, by listing the hermeneutic, you would get more details on the approach.

@MonicaCellio Sound arguments can be made in numerous different (even contradictory) directions, though.

On forms, people often treat Judaism as an ethnicity like English, French, Indian, or Chinese. Well, it's more than that.

Sometimes, I wonder what life may be like if I were a Jewish person.

Celebrating Jewish holidays, observing the Sabbath, celebrating my bar/bat mitzvah, traveling to Jerusalem on my bar/bat mitzvah according to a custom that I've heard from a Jewish friend.

On second thought, Judaism doesn't require people to become Jewish, and non-Jews can worship their gods as much as they want.

So, the closest alternative to Judaism would be Christianity.

Then, I have to figure out which type of Christianity resembles closest to Judaism.

And I think it is Roman Catholicism and older Protestant traditions. Younger Protestant traditions just don't seem to have that mysticism or cultural component to them.

@MonicaCellio Ok you convinced me...

@Jas3.1 I see the logic behind your proposal, but I see that there is one problem. I am not really affiliated with anything; I have no religious affiliation.

I am not really a Christian, because there are some beliefs that I am not sure if I want to accept it, namely biblical infallibility.

I am not a Jew, because I am not born Jewish.

And if you have examined my answers on the Christianity Stacks Exchange, they may have a nonreligious perspective. I typically refer to Christians in third person, because that is to indicate that I am not one of them.

I suppose you may call my interpretation "secular".

@Anonymous You are describing your religion, but not your hermeneutic. If you have no hermeneutic, that would be worth noting in your exegesis answers.

@Anonymous A hermeneutic would be like "historical-grammatical", "systematic typology", "Catholic [i.e. 4-layer]", etc. (It would take some effort to complete the list.)