by Lady Liberty 72 Replies latest watchtower bible
There are five verses which mention Michael the archangel in the Holy Bible and the New World Translation, and none of these verses declare him to be Jesus. In Daniel 10:13 Michael is referred to as "one of the foremost princes". However, in Revelation 19:16, Jesus is referred to as "King of kings". Is a King not above a Prince?
Deacon, when was Jesus declared King? When he was in heaven as "The Word" or when he came to earth as a human? Or upon his resurrection to heaven?
There are certainly traces of angelic christologies in early Christianity (Hebrews fights such an idea, but Justin Martyr repeatedly resorts to it). They may be traced back to Philo of Alexandria, who before Christianity can call the logos (the Word, or Reason) "Son of God" and "the archangel" (cf. my previous link). However, this line of thinking is clearly independent from the reference to a group of archangels in the Enochic/Danielic "apocalyptical" tradition, to which the name "Michael" belongs.
Thanks Leolaia for the extra information on Jude and Enoch. (And some more books to read! Testament of Abraham, Assumption of Moses and Ascension of Isaiah) I've been finding it very interesting to read early Jewish and Christian books outside the canon.
@ Lady Liberty
"The truth is out there" The X-Files 1993
"7 Keep on asking, and it will be given YOU; keep on seeking, and YOU will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to YOU." Matthew 7:7 - Yes, I really believe it!
Don't get confused, put on your Sherlock Holmes hat...
@deaconbluez
Well, Jude 9 says in the KJV:
“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.”
The words “railing accusation” are the Greek words “blasphemia krisis” which could also be translated “a slanderous judgement”. Jude also uses the Greek word “epitimao” which does also mean “to adjudge, award, in the sense of merited penalty”. Surely Jesus did not do something like that when he said in Mat. 4:10
“10 Then Jesus said to him: “Go away, Satan! For it is written, ‘It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.’
He dismissed the devil and rightly so.
Besides that your arguments don’t regard the temporal context of those three texts and the position/situation of Michael/Jesus at the given time…
@Zico
“In this book, Michael is one of seven archangels alongside others like Gabriel. Though the book is not a part of the bible canon, Jude quotes it in verses 14 and 15 of his book.”
It is not part of the inspired canon. It is a “book” that really consists of 5 “books” and wasn’t written by Enoch. According to the leading authority on the apocrypha, James H. Charlesworth, the books were written between the early pre –Maccabean era and 64 B.C. to late pre-Christian. The line in question was assumedly written in the late pre-Maccabean time.
However, it was very popular in the first century and widespread. The fact that Jude quotes from it only shows, that he believed the quoted line to be true. For all readers with faith in the Bible, this can only proof that this specific line was divinely approved. Jude was “inspired” to use this quote, not more. We find many quotes from gentile kings or rulers in the text as well as quotations from Assyrian writings in the OT and nobody would claim that the whole writings were inspired by God…
Nonetheless, I personally think that the “Book of Enoch” hold some very fascinating insights.
It is true that Michael was “one of the foremost princes” and not “the foremost” at this time… Angels worship Gods, that is true, so Jesus must have been “a God” in the context of Hebrews 1. But this does not rule out Michael to be Jesus…
@Leolaia
As usually, splendidly put. Let me add Jude 9 refers to a story of the disputes between Michael and Satan over the body of Jesus, an account that does not appear in our text.
That the episode was contained in the lost ending of the Testament of
Moses, or in a cognate work, possibly called the Assumption of Moses,
is possible, but our present information does not warrant any positive conclusion. [...] The possibility exists that some NT authors were familiar with the Testament of Moses, but it would be better to say that both the Testament of Moses and certain NT texts show familiarity with common traditional material."
In the Word Biblical Commentary on Jude, 2 Peter, (Word Books, 1983),
R.J. Bauckham includes an excursus on pp. 65-76 on the sources of Jude 9. This is the most comprehensive text I could find - eleven pages on this one verse! It is worth looking up, if you are interested and have access to a theological library. Bauckham details the relation of Jude 9 to OT and other sources, and writes "There is widespread agreement that Jude's source in verse 9 was the lost ending of a work sometimes known as the Assumption of Moses, but
more appropriately known as the Testament of Moses"
"Although the ending of the Testament of Moses is no longer extant, a
number of Christian sources seem to have preserved the substance of
the story it contained" Sources are listed, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dydimus the Blind, Gelasius, etc.
The article concludes that the "Assumption of Moses" is a second-
century edited version of the Testimony of Moses", and that Jude was
aware of, and alluded to, at least the tradition, if not the precise
wording of the Testimony.
@Deacon
Solution: Princes become Kings. It is as simple as that. Like begets like.
I'm wondering: How much of the divine nature do archangels possess? Is it much more or no different from that possessed by other angels? If no different, then how can Micheal the Archangel AKA Jesus merit to be worshipped? If more, aren't archangels still decidely inferior to Yahweh? I don't think they were viewed as gods like the sons of El would have been for ancient isrealites. Angelic christologies have a certain appeal, but viewing archangels as inferior to the divinity would be sticking closer to the mythological framework that spawned them and from that angle I can see the stance that Jesus would have to be "more" than Micheal.
But isn't the concept of the Divinity in the Gospel of John more inclusive than that held by Jews around the intertestamental period? Weren't the first century christians (not just those of the Johanine community) expecting that many of them would to some extent be bestowed with the divine nature? Christians hope they'd be judging the angels. So just how divine would these changed humans be? If humans could have this hope extended to them though, then why not to an archangel? Maybe Jesus was Micheal and he shared greatly in the divine nature, so much so that over time he became ever more godlike. Origen came up with something along that line.
Personally I think the writings of Jude and Revelation demonstrate that Jesus and Micheal were construed as different beings.
Philippus....Bauckham's excursus is indeed masterful and essential reading on the question. I would just add that the critical edition and commentary of the Testament of Moses by Johannes Tromp (Brill, 1993) gives an equally resourceful and nuanced response. Tromp disputes Bauckham's conclusion and argues that the Latin manuscript is indeed a copy of the Assumption of Moses and that its lost ending probably did have a narrative along the lines of Jude 9. He starts with the observation that Jubilees 10:21 is quoted in the Catena of Nicophorus and attributed to the "testament" (Diathéké) of Moses and the Synopsis of Pseudo-Athanasius lists the Testamentum Mosis and the Assumptio Mosis as separate works while seemingly omitting Jubilees. This suggests that the "Testament of Moses" is really one of the titles that Jubilees circulated under. In fact, the same Latin codex that contained the fragment commonly called the "Testament of Moses" also had fragments of Jubilees. Also, none of the many references to the dispute between Michael and Devil attribute it to a "Testament" of Moses whereas Clement of Alexandria, Didymus Caecus, Gelasius, and possibly Origen attribute the dispute story to the "Assumption of Moses" (Analépsis Móseós). Gelasius also quotes the "Assumption of Moses" a second time and there the quotation is identical to a passage in the Latin manuscript (1:14), which clearly establishes that the book that Gelasius used was in some form the book that was preserved in Latin. Moreover, the manuscript itself foreshadows the issue of the burial of Moses' body in 11:5-8, which implies that no human could bury Moses and which states that the entire world is Moses' grave. Bauckham accounts for this by arguing that the Assumption of Moses is a later (anti-gnostic) Christian revision of the original Testament of Moses that was used by Jude and which survives in Latin. Tromp however contends that since the "Testament of Moses" was really the book of Jubilees, a simpler explanation is that Gelasius and Jude and everyone else knew just one work, the Assumptio Mosis.
Bauckham lumps Gelasius' version of the dispute story with the quasi-gnostic stories of later scholia and catena, but the statements "For by his Holy Spirit, all of us have been created" and "God's spirit went forth from his face and the world came into being" are not necessarily gnostic or anti-gnostic at all. In fact, the language is similar to that of the extant Latin manuscript. Gelasius, as noted above, quotes 1:14 and attributes it to the Analépsis Móseós, and this text claims that Moses was prepared "from the beginning of the world" to be the mediator. The preceding verses however are thematically very close to the statements about creation that Gelasius attests from the conclusion of the Analépsis Móseós: "He created the world on behalf of his people, but he did not also reveal this purpose of the creation from the beginning of the world ... therefore, he has devised and invented me, as I have been prepared from the beginning of the world to be the mediator of the covenant" (1:12-14). Similarly, just before the manuscript breaks off, Moses continues the topic of creation: "God has created all nations on earth, and he foresaw us, them as well as us, from the beginning of the creation of the world. And nothing has been overlooked by him, not even the smallest detail, but he has seen and known everything beforehand. When he made them, the Lord saw beforehand all things that were to happen in this world... All the firmaments of heaven and fundamentals of the earth are made as approved of by God, and they are under the ring of his right hand" (12:4-5, 9). So it would not be unusual if the topic of creation continued in the concluding dispute story between Michael and the Devil, and the statements "all of us have been created" and "God's spirit went forth from his face and the world came into being" fit very well with this context. The statement that all things in the world are "made" by God and "under the ring of his right hand" nicely anticipate the dispute over Moses' body. Moses' body was created by God and lies under the ring of his right hand; the Devil cannot claim what is rightfully God's.
As for the stories of the dispute between Michael and the Devil that Bauckham attributes to the original Testament of Moses, Tromp points out that none of these (the Palaea Historica, the Slavonic Life of Moses, Pseudo-Oecumenius, etc.) in fact give the "Testament of Moses" as their source and instead these are cognate (or later) traditions of the dispute in Jewish haggadaic tradition. They are not direct witnesses to either the Testamentum Mosis or the Assumptio Mosis.
Not only is Jesus, Michael the Archangel, it is he that is pictured as one of the two "covering cherubs" atop the Ark of the Covenant. The angels are considered to be married. Husband and wife. The other angel, you guessed it, is none other than Satan. So Jesus and Satan were once husband and wife. Christ got a divorce from his wife in Eden and his second wife will come from among mankind since Christ is so in love with men (but who can blame him, men can be quite irresistible).
There is only one only-begotten angel, and that is Christ. Christ is unique whether or not the title of "archangel" is thrown around to apply to other angels. Christ is unique, like God. They are the "alpha and omega" of their kinds.
JCanon
Not only is Jesus, Michael the Archangel, it is he that is pictured as one of the two "covering cherubs" atop the Ark of the Covenant. The angels are considered to be married. Husband and wife. The other angel, you guessed it, is none other than Satan. So Jesus and Satan were once husband and wife. Christ got a divorce from his wife in Eden and his second wife will come from among mankind since Christ is so in love with men (but who can blame him, men can be quite irresistible).
Whoa wait a mintute!! What Bible did you get THAT from?? You cannot actually believe this?!? Can you??? You must be trying to be funny! How in the world do you find scriptures to support such bizzarre thinking?
Sincerely,
Lady Liberty
at the momment yes..tommorow maybe they change it
