Learn what? That God speaks in riddles? When you sign a covenant with someone, you generally get to know the terms.
Abraham was not yet under any covenant. It seems odd that God would communicate such a long and exhaustive set of rules and somehow the really important stuff would get overlooked. Or hidden.
Surely for (father) Abraham and (the long promised son) Isaac it was a riddle to travel 3 days to mount Moria (Jerusalem) and when arrived to hear from God that (father) Abraham had to sacrifice (the long promised) son. How about that riddle? Oh wait, I see the riddle copied 2000 years later, a Father sarcificing His Son.
I rather think that whole point of Abraham's journey was that God didn't want human sacrifice. In any case, if it's that fundamental, why a riddle? Why not just say it outright?
The whole point was that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his long awaited son, God's promise that through Isaac Abraham would become a large people and yet against all logic Abraham obeyed and was ready to use the knife if God did not had stopped him. And indeed God doesn't want sinful human sacrifice, it must be sinless and of divine origin. Speaking of riddles, Gen 22:2 - He [God] said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. How is that for a riddle?
Learn something about God and about yourself I'd imagine. If God is communicating in a difficult way, there's surely a reason other than to be a jerk about it.
I'm not at all opposed to the principle of progressive revelation. Humanity has grown in its understanding of the earth and the Creator along with it, so I think some things are just continuing to be revealed. Why would God tell Moses about Jesus? It was a different time. The event wasn't anywhere near. God mostly dealt with the Jews about more immediate issues, as far as I can tell from reading the Old Testament. So maybe the writings of the Maccabees and such might have different clues since they were written closer to that time. I haven't studied them extensively, so that's just an assumption.
With the caveat that we wouldn't want to equivocate between different kinds of 'faith', e.g. faith qua trust, belief, and so on.
I don't believe there was any miscommunication that prevented Jewish people from accepting Jesus as their Messiah. A lot of the Jews did believe and the early Church was Jewish before Paul went to the Gentiles. Believing is so simple but why do you think people miss believing? The first sin in the Bible was man wanted to be god and as god, they are on the throne and center of their own universe. People try to join me with the intent purpose of cursing in my presence, to change me and to lie to me to get me to trust they are Christians for their intent and purposes of ruining me and what I'm trying to do. What was the witness of Abraham? Abraham was blessed by God and people wanted the blessing but didn't necessarily want God. What is liberalism? Liberalism was to liberate us from God. What is liberal Christianity? For the most part, liberal Christianity is dead. No one believes it anymore but in some instances it is still alive. Its all an attack on Christianity. The question is really this: If salvation and believing is so easy, why is it so hard? The presence of God created a lot of problems in human history like polytheism and competing religions. If salvation was so easy as to believe then do we want an unrepentant monster or an unrepentant Hitler in heaven if all we have to do is believe? That may be why without faith, no one can please God. All the repentance we need is in the word believe because that is when we turn from self and to look towards God. God is near but we judge ourselves not worthy of eternal life with out decisions that cause us to accept or reject Jesus Christ.
I find it very difficult, almost impossible, and not dependent of volition, so I don't really understand what you're talking about. I find that I am unable to believe something without an amount of evidence that my ability to reason deems satisfying.
Or maybe God isn't communicating in a difficult way at all. Maybe the language means what it says. Occam's razor and all that.
You may not be. But that doesn't mean that is what God is doing. It conforms to your beliefs, so you accept it. But that doesn't make it objectively so. Jews see it in the opposite way. Earlier generations were on a higher spiritual level than we are today. That's why they had prophecy and direct communication with God. We don't merit that. And anyway to buy into this idea of continual revelation means to ignore Deuteronomy 4:2 You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it... (Which interestingly enough shows up again in Revelation AFTER the whole NT gets added to the bible.) Why not? If belief in Jesus is so fundamental that one is damned to hell for all eternity for not believing in him, why isn't it mentioned even once in the OT? That devout and holy Jews could pore over the bible in its original language every day of their lives, leading a Godly life, and be wrong because God chose "not to reveal that information at that time" seems tragically unjust. It would be the biggest stumble of all. And yet Psalm 119: 165 There is abundant peace to those who love Your Torah, and nothing can make them stumble.
Since before Torah, and after (as another of my Jewish friends calls it, THE SEQUEL,) the vehicle of salvation has been and always will be faith. There is no other path. As Paul puts it in the Sequel, Abraham believed God, and it was counted until him as righteousness. Abraham knew that he could not earn his salvation, or be perfectly obedient, but he could believe in what God told him to do. I am not saved because of belief in a book that Christians call the New Testament. Jews are not saved because of belief in a book that they call Torah. Both Jew and Gentile are saved, if they are saved, because they believe what God tells them. Now, of course, I have specific theological ideas about what that means, but each of us, whether evangelical, Jewish, aboriginal Australian, or any other ethnicity, will answer to God based on our response in faith to the light given to us individually. The Jewish people that believe are looking for Messiah. They believe God and trust for Messiah to come to redeem them. Certainly, Christians believe that Jesus is that Messiah, and desire earnestly for our Jewish friends to love and cherish Jesus as their Messiah, as we do; however, I am convinced that God is great enough, and the Spirit of God is powerful enough, to know His own mind and to know the faith that any son of Abraham has, whether a natural son according to the flesh or an adopted son according to the Spirit of God. There are aspects of the mystery of God that we cannot understand, regardless of how hard we try to pack Him into our tiny box. I can be faithful to expressing to my Jewish friends the hope that I find in Jesus, and the reasons that I would love from them to see him and accept him as Messiah, but at the end of the day, I have to trust in a God that is beyond comprehension, and trust that He knows what He is about, because I know that He is ultimately holy, and kind, and just.
And that's a good thing because I'd be screwed otherwise. Maybe, maybe not. Interpretation is involved, perspective can change understanding, etc. etc. By the way, what would be the Jewish view today on the Jewish Messiah, as I'm assuming it's generally accepted that the Messiah hasn't yet shown up? I'm not trying to be cheeky, that's a genuine question and I say that because my next question might make it seem as if I'm trying to be an ass (again, I'm not). If it's accepted that the Messiah hasn't shown up, then what has the general consensus been with respect to the position that it's just a matter of waiting, and questioning whether the understanding is correct?
This is Christian dogma. Judaism does not believe that salvation is via faith, or indeed that man needs "salvation" in the way that Christians believe. You're talking about Gen 15:6. So let's look at the verse in question, with some surrounding text: After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Abram didn't believe in God. That's who he was talking to. Rather, he was concerned that he would have no children (being a man of advanced years) and his servant rather than his seed would inherit him. So God made him a specific promise- that Abram would have children. And Abram trusted God to fulfill that promise. In fact, according to the text (in English and Hebrew) it isn't even clear who is crediting whom with righteousness. Does God credit Abram with righteousness for believing Him? Maybe. Is Abram crediting God with righteousness for promising him a son? Also maybe. Remember, this is the same Abram who in Gen 18 challenges God to be just upon learning of God's plan to destroy Sodom: "Far be it from You to do a thing such as this, to put to death the righteous with the wicked...Will the Judge of the entire earth not perform justice?" So Abram clearly has strong opinions on Who God is and what He should do. Why wouldn't Abram credit God to be righteous for giving him a son? This is not in my bible anywhere. I don't believe that I need to be "saved" at all. Waiting for the messiah, perhaps. Redeem us from what, though? From political oppression, as the bible describes. From sin? No, that's incumbent on each of us personally to do. And when we've accomplished that on a national level, as described so aptly in Deuteronomy 30 and elsewhere, the messiah is the reward. Not part of that process. Of course. But understanding God isn't the point. It's doing as He asks of us. And that should be straightforward and clear. Not mysterious and hidden. The last part, certainly, we can agree upon.
Because the messianic prophecies yet remain unfulfilled. There's no need to apologize. We're all interested in having an open and honest discussion, so don't feel bad about asking hard questions. Besides, we've all known each other a long time and so we are all among friends. So I don't take offense at anything that gets said to me and I hope nobody takes offense at anything that I say as well. I always speak from the heart as I know you all do. It's not a matter of understanding. The prophesies are really quite explicit. I mean, we have Isaiah 11 talking about world peace and universal knowledge of God and the ingathering of the Jewish exiles. None of those things have happened. Or the second half of Ezekiel 37, which is really the perfect summary of Jewish expectations for the messianic era. Would you like me to quote it? Sure, why not. I'll event commentate upon it. ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. Jewish exiles returned to the land. They will be one nation, not two, as they were during those times (Judah and Israel). No more idolatry, no more sin. “‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will be ruled by a king from the line of David. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. There will be scrupulous observance of the Law. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. There will be no further exile. And a king from the line of David will always be on the throne. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. There will be peace, and a rebuilt temple. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’” And the nations will be aware that God sanctifies Israel. None of these things has happened yet. If one is a religious Zionist (as many Jews and Christians are) then perhaps we live in an era when it is starting to happen. But Jews look at Christians claims that the messiah has already come and think, but none of this has occurred. And if you tell me it will happen during the "second coming", the bible doesn't say anything about any such thing.
@Fenris seems to be a rational fellow. I enjoy seeing that I'm not the only one who has genuine questions, and I don't understand why everyone else seems to be so passive-aggressive in their replies. I find it impossible to accept the fact that the source of all reason and rationality would act so mysteriously and would not endow the beings He created with sufficient cognitive abilities to understand the basics of what He requires from them and to discern satan's trickery.