Response to Ya'acov 13
Dear Ya'acov,
Thanks for your letter of 6th April. I did not think I would get opportunity to write before Pesach [Passover] and did not want to miss wishing you well.
If you don't mind me saying, it was patently obvious that you had answered my previous letter "off the top of your head". You did not seem to have even read my letter in which I showed (with documentation) that Paul spoke Hebrew, that the Tanakh [Hebrew Bible] shows the need for a mediator and that the Talmud, rather than the New Testament, promotes occultism.
Lest I should weary you with another long letter, could I simply ask for some documentation for your assertions that:
- Paul's writings are "full of Hellenistic ideas".
- "Torah teaches that EVERY MAN, WOMAN and CHILD can come directly to G-d without a mediator".
- "Paul...had a problem with Hebrew". (If, as you maintain, he had to translate the Scriptures, how did he manage to do that if he did not understand Hebrew in the first place?)
You maintain that because Paul never saw Jesus, (although he said he did, cf.: Acts22:6-11; 26:12-18; Galatians 1:11-20) he could not speak authoritatively about him. Yet you seem to accept the teachings of the Toledoth Yeshu which, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, "could not have been written before the 10th century" and which "has versions so different from each other in attitude and detail that it is impossible that one author could have written it" (Vol. 15 col. 1208, 1209)
I look forward to hearing from you after you have had time for due consideration.
As always, my very best wishes to you and your family,
Mike
P.S. On the observance of the Ten Commandments. Do you not consider non-payment of postage on letters to be a violation of the eighth Commandment? [N.B. This refers to when Ya'acov answered Mike's last letter ("Letter from Ya'acov 13"), Ya'acov put his letter in Mike's envelope and wrote "Return to Sender"].
