Just like every other year thers a new version of windows, religion has many editions, just look at xianity 30000+ in less than 2000 years. Quite an achievement. We also dont really know how many christian religions have disappeared over time, so if we do the math there literally are 10s of xian religions sprining up every year, almost down to the rate of one a month. Quite an achievement.
Luke 16:19-31 Sheol/Hades/Hell? literal vs. metaphor
by I_love_Jeff 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
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King Solomon
Leolaia said:
Israelite eschatology did not include the notion of postmortem punishment.
Ahhh, yes, that was my error, forgetting that important semantic distinction.
I am referring to Second-Temple Judaism; the problem is...where does Judaism begin? I wouldn't call pre-exilic Yahwism "Judaism" and I tend to reserve the identifier "Jew" to the post-exilic period (Judahite, or Israelite, is the term I would use for the pre-exilic period). Some scholars refer to Second Temple Judaism as early Judaism to distinguish it from later rabbinical/Talmudic Judaism and then from still later medieval Judaism. Others, such as Gabriele Boccacinni, use the term Middle Judaisms to refer to the period in question, to distinguish the pluralistic sectarian stage of Judaism (with such sects as Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, etc.) from earlier Zadokite Judaism and from later post-Second Temple rabbinical Judaism.
I know I'm probably seeking a fine line where none probably exists, but is there any defining moment which is considered as the birth of Judaism? (Where obviously Judaism refers to Judea, in the Southern region of Israel).
Off the top of my head, it would seem that Ezra reading the redacted and reintroduced Torah to the Jews who were assembled in Jerusalem, with the people and priests renewing their vows to honor the covenant and keep the law by separating themselves from all other peoples of the Land (read Samarians) would have been a watershed event in the birth (re-birth)?
Similarly, is it proper to say that Yahwehist Israelites were in exile in Babylon?
It seems since the Torah existed in quite similar form during the first Temple period, and sacrificial offerings and Temple worship were in full swing, that the covenant relationship between YHWH and descendents of Abraham was just as in effect then as AFTER the Temple was rebuilt (from a legalistic analysis).
I know: I'm just showing my ignorance of Jewish beliefs and history, but at least I'm willing to admit it (unlike many Xians). :)
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Leolaia
Well, it's arbitrary to define a line of demarcation because it was a continuous process. I personally find the most robust break to be the period of the Exile; there was so much social, theological, and literary transformation in the Babylonian golah (see Albertz' Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. for a detailed survey), and much of it foundational to what we think of as Judaism. There were important developments before the Exile, such as the Josianic reform which centralized the Yahweh cult and combined aniconism with monolatry, but the changed situation of the Exile introduced new concerns, as well as a new robust form of monotheism. With the sacrificial cult confined to Jerusalem (which lay in ruins), new forms of piety and worship needed to be devised in the golah (paving the way for non-sacrifical forms of Judaism). It was also important to maintain ethnic distinctiveness to prevent assimilation to the larger Mesopotamian culture. Then after the return from Exile, the returnees found that Judah was inhabited by Edomites and others (the "people of the land"), and this reinforced the demand for ritual separation -- extending obligations originally confined to priests to the populace in general which came to mark Jewish identity. There was also conflict between priestly Judaism and non-priestly Judaism, Torah-centered Judaism and Enochic Judaism (which did not recognize the Torah), and then after Alexander the Great, between those who assimilated to Hellenistic culture and those who didn't. Judaism diversified into various sects (including nascent Christianity) until the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 effectively ended (sacrificial) Sadduceanism and Essenism, leaving Pharisaism in place to determine what would be normative Judaism (with the early Christians designated soon afterward as among ha-Minim).
BTW, I would not say that the Pentateuch existed in essentially the same form prior to the Exile. One of the most important components, P, is exilic. The redaction of the Pentateuch was still later.
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designs
Doesn't this raise the issue of the Jesus character portrayed in the Gospels as being a Progressive Jew rather than an Orthodox Jew.
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Leolaia
What does "orthodox Jew" mean in the context of Second Temple Judaism?
In the decades before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jewish people in the Roman province of Iudaea were divided into several movements, sometimes warring among themselves: Saducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Zealots. Many historic sources, from Flavius Josephus to the Christian New Testament to the recovered fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, attest to the divisions among Jews at this time. Rabbinical writings from later periods, including the Talmud, attest further to these ancient schisms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_religious_movements#Jewish_sects_in_the_Second_Temple_period
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Dogpatch
Leolaia said,
To allegorize away the references to the afterlife and claim that the whole parable is figurative of one's spiritual condition, or however the Society interprets it, is to miss the point of the parable and misconstrue the literary genre of the parable.
and also:
It is a category mistake to claim that the references to postmortem punishment in the Rich Man and Lazarus pericope must be figurative since the narrative is a parable. The Society pursues an allegorical interpretation because it is necessitated by their annihilationist eschatology; allegory is a handy hermeneutic to dispense with difficult scriptures. Allegory however is not justified by the text itself, which contains a narrative parable (quite different from similitude parables) that contrasts the moral choices made by different characters.
All good points in this thread. The pre-hellenistic interpretation of the few mentions of Sheol and the rephaim are vague and varied. Come along the Second Temple period and the clear evidence of shifting theology is evident among the "orthodox." i.e., the Lake of fire and Gehenna and Tartarus and concepts like aionios ton aionios (forever... to the AGES of the AGES... INFINITY). The tribal religion of the Jews changed like all religions, with the times. What people think hell is today is completely irrelevant if you are trying to determine/intertpret the 27 books of the NT.
Most modern American evangelical and Pentecostal Christian doctrines are so far removed from the experience and beliefs of the early Christians it's crazy.
http://www.randallwatters.org/hellcomp.htm
Randy
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designs
Leolaia- The Sadducees (TZADOKIM). "The Sadducees were implacably opposed to the alien beliefs expressed by the Pharisees. They denounced them as being in violation of the teachings of Moses...". The Book Of Jewish Wisdom by Ausubel
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Vanderhoven7
My favourite passage.
Luke 16 stories are satire on the lips of Jesus....the former with the dishonest and coveteous steward (Pharisees) being commended by God....the latter, with the Pharisees ending up in their own pagan hell.
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designs
Most of what the Jesus character of the Gospels taught was from the progressive school of the Pharisees.
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jonathan dough
The pre-hellenistic interpretation of the few mentions of Sheol and the rephaim are vague and varied.
While the "interpretation" might have been vague or varied, the Scriptures referencing them are not. A reasonable person would be hard pressed to make the case for annihilationism, even in the OT, that at death all that is man becomes extinct as the JWs teach incorrectly, to be reasembled in the future, and that no conscious immaterial entity soul (spirit) survives the death of the body. Add the proof texts of the NT and annihilationism crumbles, as does soul materialism, a major platform of Watchtower pseudo-theology.
You forgot to mention the 'owb.' That the departed dead spirits in Sheol are conscious and communicate and think is reiterated at Isaiah 29:4 (KJV) where God warned the inhabitants of Jerusalem of their impending destruction, writing through the prophet, “Prostrate you shall speak from the earth, and from the base dust your words shall come. Your voice shall be like a ghost's (Hebrew, owb) (Vine's at 178), from the earth, and your words like chirping from the dust.” (NAB). According to Vine's, “Owb means 'spirit' (of the dead); necromancy, pit. This word usually represents the troubled spirit (or spirits) of the dead. This meaning appears unquestionably in Isaiah 29:4” (ibid.).
The Jehovah's Witnesses are technically “materialists” and subscribe to the doctrine of materialism (not to be confused with greed and the accumulation of things). Materialists deny body/soul dualism and the very existence of a “soul.” They believe all cognitive functions of thought, emotions, will and conscience, etc. are biological consequences of the material self, the body. When the body dies, that which traditionalists call the soul (spirit) simply vanishes and ceases to exist. “For the materialists, the soul, or the conscious life, is but a function of the organism, and necessarily perishes at death” (www.newadvent.org/cathen/07687a.htm).
Materialism is not unique to the Watchtower Society. It can be traced back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) who taught, among other things, that nothing exists except matter and space (PBD at 256). Epicurus believed that ... he could disprove the possibility of the soul's survival after death Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/. Furthermore, “[t]he Epicurean school offers us the most complete and reasoned negation of immortality among ancient philosophers” (newadvent.org/cathen/07687 at 3). Epicureanism was widespread and popular during the time of Christ, and it is logical to conclude that the Jehovah's Witnesses' doctrine of materialism is rooted in this Greek philosophy.
Similarly, the ancient Sadducees, a religious party that existed during the time of Christ and which had members in the Jewish council called the Sanhedrin (which caused Christ to be put to death) denied “personal immortality, and retribution in a future life (PBD at 741), just like the Jehovah's Witnesses. “The doctrine of the Sadducees,” wrote Josephus,” is this, that souls die with the bodies,” (Antiq. Xviii. 1, 4); and again, “they also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades” (Jewish War, ii,i,14) (PBD at 741), just as the Jehovah's Witnesses teach.
In contemporary times the Jehovah's Witnesses are allied with secular atheists and other non-Christians on the margins who go to great lengths to deny the existence of the Christian immortal soul, or any soul for that matter, claiming that the soul is nothing more than the product of an organism, secretions of the brain and such, basing their claims in part on “neurophysiology,” (Restoring the Soul to Christianity, DR 502, J.P. Moreland, http://www.equip.org/articles/restoring-the-soul-to-christianity/).
Lastly, there has been a recent rash of materialist apologetics – evangelical preachers – who argue that Christian body/soul dualism is false, that a person is not a composite of body and soul, that the soul does not survive the death of the body, and the resurrected unsaved wicked are not punished eternally, or at all, but are simply extinguished, annihilated, being treated to a kinder, gentler, one-size-fits-all form of punishment. Of course it is no surprise that such modern-day preachers are attempting to overturn 2,000 years of Christian theology, for the Bible warns us that “in the last days, false teachers and false prophets will appear among us (2 Peter 2:1; Matthew 24:11).