Can't tell one Moshiach from another without a program?

Submitted by orange yonason (United States), Jan 10, 2006 at 23:37

BS"D

Are they all just mythical figures, or are any of the claims true, and if so which one(s)?

Since I'm a Torah Observant Jew, you can probably guess my preference, so I don't need to repeat it. But, I would like to suggest that it should be obvious that logic requires there to be only one Truth. We can therefore immediately and confidently state categorically that either one (and only one) claim is true, or none are.

I'm afraid I have to leave you to your own devices to sort out which, though. That's a challenge no one can solve for anyone else, though I would again suggest that logic can help eliminate as contenders anyone who says, or has ever said, "believe in my idiology or die," as does the green-glowing (http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/uploads/ahmadinejad_lg-16_002.jpg) "wipe Israel off the map"-lunatic-elect of Iran.

But, even though I can't solve your dilema for you, I can at least give you an historical perspective of where Orthodox Jews are "coming from," and hope that clears up a few misconceptions.

" The Rambam (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Maimonides.html) ...... In Hilchos Melachim 11:4 (as it appears in the uncensored, handwritten, Yemenite manuscript, which has also been incorporated into the main text of the Frankel Rambam, the Rambam L'am and other prestigious editions of Rambam), he states that Christianity and Islam came about in order to prepare the world for the coming of Moshiach. Their very opposition to the Jewish perspective on Moshiach caused the world to become "filled with the topic of Moshiach." Although they pervert the Torah's true position, "when the King Moshiach will truly arise, and succeed, and become exalted and upraised, they will immediately return [to the Torah's true position], and they will know that their fathers bequeathed to them a false heritage, and their ancestorsand prophets led them astray." "
http://beismoshiach.org/Archives/398/css/398_16.htm

Consequently, even though at least 2 of the 3 messianic claims must logically be false, the vary fact that the concept of Moshiach is not only enterring, but becoming embedded in our consciousness' as a result of their teachings and megalomanaical antics, and so is preparing us all for the real thing. And, when that positive world-altering event finally actually does occur, no one will be at a total loss as to how to deal with it.

No doubt the other 2 sides will take issue with this, but that's what an open exchange of ideas is about, so that the Truth will out in the end.

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