Question regarding Messianic authors and the purpose of quoting rabbinical sources?
A couple of times when I asked questions regarding Messianic authors and their quoting of rabbinical sources, I was told that the main reason for doing so was to counter arguments that certain Biblical passages were not Messianic prophecies.
See here for an example: /question/index?qid=20150201082349AAZ2ReC
That got me thinking: How often has this actually happened? In other words, which Biblical passages or chapters were said to be NOT Messianic prophecies, thus the Messianic authors (or the people who quote them) had to respond that rabbinical sources say that it is? And I mean, besides Isaiah 53. (Which rabbinical sources do NOT actually say is a Messianic prophecy but it is claimed as such. That, however, is outside the scope of what I am saying here and for details I would suggest seeing http://www.judaismsanswer.com/Isaiah53TalmudMidrash.htm .)
Secondly, I was wondering about the following:
Dr. Michael Brown takes a teaching of the Talmud regarding the time of the Messianic era and claims it works out to the time of Jesus.
Quote:
“we find ourselves right in the middle of the time of Yeshua. He was the one who came at the time the Messiah was expected to come, and this according to a Rabbinic tradition.”
Now, this is not about any particular Biblical passage and whether it is Messianic. Therefore, if cannot be said that the purpose of such a quote was to counter any point about any Biblical passage or verse. If that is the case, then why did Dr. Brown reference it at all?
(As an aside, his calculations are wrong.)
Also, a small suggestion: If you are planning on answering my question, it may be prudent if you focused on the points of my question. Too often, I have seen people devote a majority of their answer to things that had little or nothing to do with my question. For example, telling me that you have yet to meet a Jewish person who "knows G-d" has nothing to do with the question.
Just a note before I close the question:
The reason I made a reference to Dr. Brown taking a teaching of the Talmud and falsely applying it to Jesus is because nowhere in such a claim can we see an example of where the rabbinical view of a given verse was that it was Messianic, allegedly or not. Therefore, the claim that the reason for quoting rabbinical sources was to counter arguments that certain Biblical passages were not Messianic prophecies is demonstrated to NOT be SO since we find at...
... least some cases where that is not true, and far more likely, most cases. Thus, it seems to be that the utility of quoting rabbinical sources is not to counter actual "objections" but rather as a tactic to convince those who are not knowledgeable and who are unfamiliar with the fact that it leads to a logical dead end.