Jesus the archangel Michael? No. (page 2)

heathen

The WTBTS does teach that they are Michaels chosen people and nobody else . Of course they claim to be the only "true" religion . I do think it important to worship with spirit and truth but the WTBTS has proven itself in error so many times they don't have any credibility left . It's not my call tho things could turn out different .

Leolaia

moggy lover....I agree that "rule" is not necessarily the best sense for 'md in the Hebrew portion of Daniel; in most of these instances, "arise" will do just fine, especially in capturing some of the inherent ambiguity of the term (evident in Daniel 12:1). But in most of the instances of the word in ch. 11, "arise" has the sense of "come to power" (thus not that far from "rule"), particularly since it is used to introduce or identify a new king (cf. 11:2b, 3, 7, 20, 21), often "in the place" of the prior king (cf. 11:7, 20, 21). The main problem with "rule" is that this is a stative verb (i.e. a king "rules" over a duration of time), while 'md is used in the above cases to indicate changes of state (i.e. the accession of a new king). Some familiarity with the Seleucid history being related in ch. 11 will also assist in clarifying the sense of the word.

BTW, quite a few Bible scholars do believe that Michael in Hebrew Daniel is being construed as a Messianic deliverer and is being identified with the "one like a son of man" from ch. 7; Michael also has the same role in the Dead Sea Scrolls. John Day and John Collins in particular present quite cogent and detailed evidence from Daniel for this conclusion. I could go ahead and present the evidence they cite and explain why they come to that conclusion (and add much new info to this thread), but I'm not going to do that. If you want more info, you can go to your nearest academic library and read these books for yourself. I've decided not to take the time to try to write a long post to explain in my own words the evidence just to have ppl criticize me for "showing off my knowledge" and making ppl feel bad for trying to explain the reasoning behind an idea. But if you want the publication info for these books, just let me know...

blondie

It was researching this topic that started me down the road to where I am now.

The WTS will not commit specifically that the Bible says that Michael is Jesus but then goes on in the publications after that to dogmatically say that Jesus is Michael. I wonder what would happen to a JW that did not support their view...kick them out?

Blondie

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g02 2/8 p. 17 Who Is Michael the Archangel? ***

While there is no statement in the Bible that categorically identifies Michael the archangel as Jesus,

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w04 2/1 p. 20 "The Scene of This World Is Changing" ***

Who is the villain behind the worsening world conditions? Revelation 12:7-9 unmasks the culprit: "War broke out in heaven: Michael [Jesus Christ] and his angels battled with the dragon [Satan the Devil], and the dragon and its angels battled but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, . . . who is misleading the entire inhabited earth."

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w04 8/1 p. 28 Questions From Readers ***

This subjugation of the demons was just a foregleam of the future day when Jesus, as Michael the archangel, would battle with Satan and cast him from heaven to earth.

yucca

Isaiah 44:24 I am the Lord who makes all things who stretches out the heavens all alone who spreads abroad the earth by myself John 1:1 In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. v2 he was in the beginning with God v3 All things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made. Also Genesis chapter 1 tells of God creating heaven and earth Jesus is not Michael the angel

Boxed elder bugs

Why would an intelligent God allow for such ambiguity to exist if our eternal salvation depended on basically choosing the right form of worshiping God among a field of such incredibly different interpretations on the meanings. Since none of us lived back then as eyewitnesses to anything in the Bible and none of the bibilical writers are around to answer our questions, and the Witnesses sure as hell have proven they don't know, and God ain't talking, and there are no videos or DVD's of what actually happened or was said I think it's safe to say that there is no ultimate 'truth" availiable at this time. Sorry, I guess you'll all have to pack up your Bibles and go home.

Shazard

That is usual tactics of cults and sects to use symbolic, allegoric, hard-to-understand, apocaliptical books as BASE of their theology. Normal christianity places the books at the very bottom of the pyramid of understanding Bible. John himself testifies that whatever he has written in his Gospel John 20:31 is enough to come to faith and gain ethernal life. So actually, you can pull Gospel of John out of the Bible and never see other books and still get saved without need to know anything about Daniel or 144000 and all other stuff what WT pulls out of the books! But as I found out Gospel of John alon can refute 90% of their theology!

peacefulpete

Leolaia, please don't let ignorant detractors hinder you from sharing your research. Many of us enjoy and admire your contribution. Without a few sober minded objective researchers this forum would soon turn to a breeding ground of JW spin offs and conspiracy cabals.

Boxed elder bugs

Just a footnote to my comment, I certainly wasn't criticizing anybodies research I think the research done by the commentators on this thread is quite interesting, thats what I like about this board, unlike the Witnesse Kingdom Hall where only one opinion is allowed this board allows a diversity of opinion, even mine. And as far as 'conspiricy cabals' all of human history is full of conspiricies so it woudn't suprise me if there is a Mason/Watchtower connection but I don't have time to research this. And I know there are elements out there that can't stand the free exchange of ideas that takes place on the internet, and are working on some way to stop it. But I do apologize for my "pack up your bibles and go home" remark, I meant that as a joke, I guess I shoudn't post late at night when I am tired.

moggy lover

Hi, Leolaia

In reading my post again it appears that I erred in not allowing "aram" to have a meaning of "rule" in those seven verses cited in Dan 8 and 11 by the WTS For this I apologise. My point, which I believe is a valid one, was that from a lexical point of view, none of the authorities I used at the start of my post, actually commit themselves to that inference. Indeed, both the Theological Dictionary of the OT and Gesenius specifically cite Dan 11:2,3 etc and give the lexical meaning of "stand up, establish, preserve" [Ges. Lexicon pg 638] that this may include the possibility of "Rule" is something that ought to be considered. In this your point is taken.

My original premise, I believe, still stands, however. And that is that in Dan 12:1, the meaning of "to rule" is remote at best when applied to "aram" and that extending the meaning from some verses of Dan 8 and 11 to cover this does not make for good exegsis. The first to do this in any published form was, I believe, the SDA scholar, Uriah Smith in his commentary on Rev and Dan

I do believe there are some scholars who identify Michael with a Messianic figure of Judaism, but identifying Michael with Jesus Christ specifically appears to be relatively recent [Late 19th Cent with the rise of SDAism. Since Russell was incapable of any original thought it is my belief he acquired his conclusion from that source] and no, I have not read the authorities cited by you. Jewish belief in Michael seems to be ambiguous. Views range from identifying him with the Messiah, a guardian angel of Israel, one of seven archangels, and there are even some who identify him with a special angelic being in the service of Ahura Mazda, the chief deity of Zoroastrianism. Evidently the Jews were influenced by this concept when in captivity to Babylon, although Zoroastrianism was the religion of Persia

None of which was my primary concern since all these noncanonical identifications appear to be imaginative embellishments of the few details which can be gleaned about him from the biblical accounts

Your post was excellent, as usual.

Cheers

tetrapod.sapien

That's the million dollar question, isn't it?

nah. there are lots of people making millions off of Michaelites already....

ts

Jesus the archangel Michael? No.

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