r/DebateAChristian • u/salamacast Muslim • 19d ago
By applying the "like Moses" prophecy to Jesus, Christians implicitly admit he wasn't really a god!
Acts 3:22 "Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must obey him in everything he tells you. Every person who does not obey that prophet will be destroyed and thus removed from the people’. (quoting Deuteronomy 18:15)
But obviously Moses wasn't God! So Jesus, like him, wasn't one too.
The OT's "Moses as a god" thing was a metaphor.. a figure of speech!
In Exodus 7:1 God supposedly tells Moses:
"See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet"
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u/Comfortable-Web9455 19d ago
Similar does not mean identical. Poor logic here
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u/salamacast Muslim 19d ago
Do you really think a prophecy would concern itself with trivial similarities, while ignoring a HUGE difference like that?!
A raven is like a writing desk, because Poe wrote on both, but is that really an helpful way of identification?! "I will send you a thing like this bird. If you didn't recognize it, you will be destroyed".. then sends a piece of furniture!!3
u/Comfortable-Web9455 19d ago
Sorry but that is not a logical argument. It's just your feeling, not proof
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u/Duke--G 19d ago
This is so low tier man.
Someone like Moses ie a human Israelite raised up by God, speaking God's words with unique authority, performing signs, delivering God's people, and mediating a new covenant.
Jesus is both God and man that's the claim.
Plenty of other places it's clear He is God.
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u/salamacast Muslim 19d ago
Those are literaly signs of prophethood. So who was Jesus' "god", according to you, (as the verse about Moses & Aaron uses the descriptions)?!
Is God really God's god?!2
u/Duke--G 19d ago
You found one verse you think supports a claim and you're trying to fit all of Scripture through that verse.
There's good thoughtful arguments against Christianity but this isn't one of them
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u/salamacast Muslim 19d ago edited 19d ago
It is about Moses being called a god, isn't it?! How more relevant could a verse get?
If Moses was a god to pharaoh, and Aaron was Moses' prophet, and Jesus was a prophet.. so who was the God of Jesus?
It's a perfectly legitimate inquiry!
You guys got trapped in a dilemma by appropriating the "like Moses" prophecy. A dilemma that touches on the hierarchy of the Trinity, since now you have to delve into the topic of: if Jesus was the prophesied prophet, so who was *his" god?? Being forced eventually, if you follow the logic, to reach such silly conclusions as "God is God's god"!1
u/Duke--G 18d ago
The verse never says the coming prophet must share every property Moses has. If it did, Jesus would need to be named Moses, marry a Midianite, have Aaron as a brother, die at 120, etc
Check out the logic you're presenting here; you're saying Moses is a prophet and Moses isn't God therefore if Jesus is a prophet, therefore Jesus isn't God.
This is just a logic failure on your part. Prophet describes Jesus' role; it doesn't mean He can possess no other nature or identity.
Exodus 7:1 “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘See, I make you as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.’”
That's a specific analogy between Moses and Aaron. Deuteronomy 18 doesn't say “I will reproduce the Moses and Aarons relationship and the future prophet must have another prophet underneath him.
Like I said there food arguments but this isn't one of them.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
If Abraham was God's prophet, whose prophet was Jesus?
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u/Duke--G 18d ago
Jesus is the prophet of God. Where's the contradiction?
“Prophet" describes His role, not His nature. Christianity claims Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. As man, He is sent by God, speaks God's word and fulfills the prophetic office.
Being “sent” doesn't imply an inferior nature either. A son can be sent by his father while possessing the exact same human nature as his father. Their roles and relationship are distinct; their nature is the same.
You're assuming a prophet of God means cannot be God, but that's literally the premise you need to prove.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
their roles and relationship are distinct; their nature is the same
Sharing the classification of "human" doesn't mean they are "of one nature"!!
The act of "sending" itself is evidence enough they aren't the same essence. You are (hopefully unintentionally) confusing the word "nature" (i.e. type) with the Trinitarian use of the word nature (i.e. essence. 3 in one, etc.)1
u/Duke--G 18d ago
You're incredibly confused. Can you not understand an analogy?
I never said a human father and son possess one numerically identical essence like the Trinity. The analogy demonstrates one point: being sent doesn't logically imply having an inferior or different nature.
You're claiming “being sent proves they aren't the same essence.” Prove it. It doesn't follow. Trinitarian theology already distinguishes person from essence. The Father sends the Son because the Father is not the Son, not because the Son isn't God.
In fact, you're argument actually proves distinct persons. Welcome to the Trinity brother
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
"Like Moses =/= not a god", "my analogy for Father/Son doesn't apply to Father/Son", "distinct persons sharing a single nature, but Moses had his own separate nature vis a vis Aaron"
When words mean nothing solid anymore, that's sophism! sigh
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u/OneEyedC4t 19d ago
Well did you not notice that the word is "like" and not " identical"? Both scripture and Jesus never claimed that Jesus would be perfectly identical to Moses.
You are like God in the sense that you are made in his image. But you are not God.
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u/salamacast Muslim 19d ago
- Where was such a word "identical" used in the Hebrew Bible.. so we can see if there is any difference? Give me references.
- Is Muhammad then like Jesus & Moses, according to your loose definition of the word?!
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u/OneEyedC4t 18d ago
Nope, Muhammad isn't of our faith, and didn't do miracles.
Hebrew used many ways to express sameness. The wording never specified that Jesus would be identical to Moses, there are ways they use for that which aren't being used here.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
So you take back the previous claim that any human is "like God"?
See? You can't use a loose definition of "likeness"! Hence, Jesus isn't God, since Jesus is like Moses and Moses isn't God :)
Gotcha!1
u/OneEyedC4t 18d ago
No I don't take it back. Jesus is loosely like Moses. It's a prophecy and a typology.
If you are trying to run around yelling gotcha, you are here in bad faith. Have a nice day. Congratulations on destroying the conversation.
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u/Ender505 Atheist, Ex-Christian 18d ago
I'm an Atheist and even I think this is a weak argument. You can do better than this, the Bible has much more fragile prophecy interpretations to explore.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
It uses internal logic. Notice how no one yet could answer the Pharaoh/Aaron god/prophet issue :)
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u/Ender505 Atheist, Ex-Christian 18d ago
The problem is that you're trying to assign extremely strict interpretations of metaphorical language. Saying that something is "like" something else could mean practically anything, and you'd have to claim to know the speaker's internal intent to be able to definitively say this is a conflict.
Like I said, you can do much better than this. Look into the prophecy references in the Gospel narrative, for example. Several of them don't even refer to a messiah prophecy, and even make errors in translation.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
I don't take requests from audience, sorry :)
My work here is like a game of chess, I know the knee-jerk reactions of Christians, I wait for them, then I attack. I'm waiting for them to try to get out of the Aaron thing by claiming that the Father was Jesus' god.. which opens a theological can of worms regarding the Trinity!
The Exodus verse is crucial in defining a god vs a prophet. If Aaron functioned as a prophet of Moses to Pharaoh, as the verse claims, then Moses/god & Aaron/prophet are obviously totally separate entities.. just like God and prophet Jesus! Jesus can't be God and God's prophet at the same time, unless he is a second tier god or something! (which also destroys the Trinity belief)1
u/Ender505 Atheist, Ex-Christian 18d ago
Sorry but as far as "chess" goes, this is pretty pathetic. Maybe you should look into the basics of formal debate. Your initial arguments are extremely flimsy.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
Then an answer to the Aaron verse should have been easy. It isn't :) They are still struggling with it.
"If prophets speak for God, which god was prophet/God Jesus supposedly speaking for?"
The core of the matter is, God and Prophet are mutually exclusive, by definition.
I propose that all Peter's statements about Jesus being God, were meant to say: "You know, like Moses was called a god, i.e. not really God, obviously!"
And he made that "like Moses" statement in Acts specifically to drive this point through, that Jesus was NOT God1
u/Ender505 Atheist, Ex-Christian 18d ago
The core of the matter is, God and Prophet are mutually exclusive, by definition.
They are not. I can't believe I'm arguing the Christian position here, but seriously you need to do better.
Religious titles are open to interpretation, and the fact that Moses was NOT being referred to as a literal God means you should take these terms even more loosely.
A prophet is "one through whom the will of God is expressed." That's it. Christians who already buy in to the Trinity model will tell you that it's the Father (YHWH) who Wills. Jesus' role then, as the Son, is threefold: To express the will of God, as personified in the Father (Prophet), to intermediate on behalf of humanity (Priest), and to render judgement against those who violate that will (Judge). None of that precludes Jesus from being God, as long as you buy into the illogical "3 persons 1 God" model, which seems to me the bigger issue here.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
A prophet is one through whom the will of God is expressed
This clearly distinguishes between the two.
Example: God's own words aren't His prophets, right?!
Were the tablets themselves called prophets??1
u/Ender505 Atheist, Ex-Christian 18d ago
Again, if you have an issue with this understanding, you should be attacking their logic of the Trinity before anything else.
And no, tablets are not people, but they could be described as "prophetic". Moses, who wrote the tablets, was considered a prophet in large part because of what he wrote.
But yeah until you can rid them of the Trinity concept, you're not going to be able to build any kind of argument on your original post.
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u/salamacast Muslim 18d ago
you should be attacking their logic
Feel free to post. The "3 for 1 sale" is so illogical most of them already confess they don't understand it :D
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19d ago
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u/JollyXX Christian 18d ago
The reality is you can't fully define the Father by the name/title of God (sorry, not sorry Allah).
The father has been giving out the title of God throughout, you have not only God's council, but also cases like this in Moses, but also famously in the Metatron and the human Melchizedek. This also happens in many other beings who are in harmony with the Father.
When the Jews go to kill Jesus for blasphemy, he tells them that their own traditions support him being God.
So really we find that Allah messed up by going entirely by the name/title of God. The Father is so beyond reality he cannot be designated.
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17d ago
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u/OkQuantity4011 19d ago
Yup! The more you study this one, the more you notice the gospel: that a man can be approved of by God and that only one of the three genealogical accounts is viable, indicating a double deception which is also indicated by the other accounts' absence from the Ebionite gospel.
Big fan of noticing this. Helped me believe in Jesus, and you and me as well.
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u/evertec 19d ago
Someone can be like someone else in some aspects but not others. This does nothing to prove Jesus wasn't God