"Just as the days of Noah" (page 5)

PSacramento

How did he condemn it? By shaking his fist in their general direction?

LMAO !! I just pictured an old beared man in a ark, with his head and body out a window, shaking his fist at people !!

snowbird

But it wont be a surprise to the ones expecting it (like they are told to do in the Bible).

-Sab

*sigh*

Let's try an illustration, shall we?

A friend of yours should be arriving any day now.

You're not sure of the date or the time, but you're in expectation.

You've got the room prepared, the food in the pantry/freezer, you've even told your neighbors.

You go to bed one night, telling yourself that surely by this time tomorrow your friend should be here.

Around 2 am, you're awakened by a loud knock - your friend at last!

Even though you'd been in expectation of the visit for some time, did you expect your friend to show at that surprising hour?

Syl

Farkel

PSac,

::Hebrews 11 mentions Noah as a preacher of righteousness, but Noah didn't preach shit

:Where does it say that?

Sorry, I meant 2 Peter 2:5:

5 And spared not the old world, but saved a Noah the eighth person, a preacher of b righteousness, bringing in the c flood upon the world of the ungodly;

Farkel

PSacramento

AH, thanks Farkel.

Yeah, Genesis doesn't mention that Noah preached to anyone, unless Peter was quoting another source outside of Genesis, which he may well have been.

One HOPES that Noah preached that God was gonna make everyone surfers and not that he kept it to himself.

Welcome to ancient Jewish-Christian apocalyptic thought! Essential to this worldview was dualism, the idea that all humankind can be divided into two categories, good and evil, and that in the final crisis (the "great tribulation", an idea updating the Danielic scenario) everyone will take sides. This idea is especially common in Essenism, the intellectual predecessor of early Christianity. The Essene view, in turn, is rooted Enochic Judaism. For a good example of dualism in a pre-Christian Essene apocalypse, see the War Scroll (1QM), which relates the final war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. This is a quite conscious reworking of the Danielic scenario of the end. Connected with this is also an ethical dualism, that there are only two ways of living and only two paths that one could take. This notion can be found, for instance, in Matthew 7:13-14, 12:33, Luke 6:43, 13:23-20, etc. There was a pre-Christian Two Ways document that delineated these two ways of living which came to be incorporated in the Didache, the epistle of Barnabas, and the Didascalia.

Dualism comes especially into play in the apocalyptic concept of eschatological judgment, that God or his representative would come on a predetermined day (Judgment Day) and divide the dead and the living into two groups: the righteous to be rewarded with eternal life and the wicked to be punished with eternal torment. This scenario is fleshed out in detail in the Essene Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37-71), written in the early first century AD, where the eschatological judge is a heavenly being called the Son of Man. This idea is fleshed out further in the synoptic gospels, where the Son of Man is identified with Jesus. Matthew 25:31-46 gives a detailed description of Judgment Day, where the judging separates humankind into two categories (sheep and goats). The Matthean scenario however doesn't describe what the final tribulation is supposed to be like and who the eschatological antagonist is. It also isn't a total extermination of the elect since it pointedly refers to the elect being alive at the parousia (16:27-28, 24:22, 31, 34, 40-41), as well as the wicked (10:15, 12:41-42, 26:64). The point of the parables comparing the parousia to the Flood is to underscore the suddenness and unexpectedness of the event. It is in Revelation where we have a Christian apocalypse that focuses on the final eschatological war and names who the final opponent is supposed to be (i.e. the Beast, a.k.a. Nero redivivus). Here Judgment Day, related in ch. 20, is preceded by the parousia in which Jesus exterminates all the wicked organized to battle against him (ch. 19). The scenario in Revelation is very dualistic: first the Beast unleashes the great tribulation which would force everyone, whether great or small, to choose between worshipping God and Christ or worshipping himself (ch. 13-14). It is presented as an either/or situation: either you receive the mark of the Beast and live, or you are put to death. All of God's people who remain faithful are thus put to death. Thus when Christ returns in ch. 19, no faithful Christians are left on the earth and all who have the mark of the Beast are put to death. So in this scenario, everyone dies. This is very different from the Watchtower interpretation that construes of "Armageddon survivors"; there are no survivors in Revelation. When Judgment Day occurs in ch. 20, it is only the dead who are judged. But what is important, in trying to understand early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic thought, is to refrain from using Revelation as a sort of blueprint of what was believed to occur. Each apocalypse is different and each has varying scenarios.

This unfortunately is part of the legacy our culture carries from biblical times. There may be more enlightened perspectives in the NT, such as the more nuanced view in the gospels that people that we may think of as wicked are really not (e.g. the story of the "Good Samaritan"), and those who think they are righteous are really not, but there is still a dualist worldview that views that eventually it will be an us vs. them climax to history. And this view will especially be paramount in groups that emphasize that this "final time" is right now. So the JWs very much carry this legacy with them and build on the dualism that represented one current within early Judaism and Christianity. What is more dangerous is that there are people with political power who believe that they can help make this happen.

sabastious

A friend of yours should be arriving any day now.

Jesus could arrive in my great great great great grandson's day... so how does this analogy fit?

-Sab

sabastious

One HOPES that Noah preached that God was gonna make everyone surfers and not that he kept it to himself.

How much of each day would have had to devote to the building of the Ark with his technology (what, like different shaped rocks?) when it took 40 years to complete.

How much time would he have for WARNING THE WHOLE WORLD of it's impending doom?

-Sab

snowbird

A friend of yours should be arriving any day now.

Jesus could arrive in my great great great great grandson's day... so how does this analogy fit?

-Sab

Or, He could arrive three hours from now.

This analogy fits in with what He told His disciples - I'm coming back; keep on the watch because you don't know when.

Syl

sabastious

Leolaia, thanks for that.

I think it's apparent that Good and Evil are manufactured concepts, when really our conduct is always somewhere in between.

We are creatures of habit and predictability so any "grey areas" are often found very threatening.

-Sab

sabastious

Or, He could arrive three hours from now.

Of course he *could* nevermind it's been 2000 years...

The caller in your anaolgy has a SET TIME FRAME for when he will arrive... you can't tell me it's the same thing as Christ's Coming?

-Sab

"Just as the days of Noah"

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