by kepler 39 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Then there is the account of the ressurection of Lazarus. I beleive it was in Jn 15, where Laz's mother mentions to Jesus that she is aware that Lazurus would be ressurected in the last days. Jesus of course ressurected Lazarus then, to show the power that he had over death.
Josephus did give us three points of view of various Jews that lived during that time, but he didn't give us Jesus's point of view. He wrote secular history, not divinely inspired writtings
hannes
All scripture is about bringing back what was lost. Even by calling the human image and likeness of God death is already being called into question, if you think about it. What prevalence would be there over the reptile's sting, if not in a reversal of death to life?
mP:
WHy does it matter that we lost all the cruelty, bigotry, hatred, racial separation, classes and so many other terrible practices ? I personally couldnt be happier that we have made progress and that religion in all its forms including xianity is fading into the past.
Hannes
What use of sacrifices, however useless they were, if there were no hope at all in a remedy against the dieing?
mP:
Follow the money. Sacrifices of animals, food, drink and more were freebies for the priests. Seriously why would the god of the universe need pathetic sacrifices of a few sheep or whatever. Its a bit like us getting a microscopic crumb from ants. Its so pathetic why bother.
Quarterback,
That's a good spot. Searching it down, Martha spoke in John 11:23-24. But what we've got is another data point. The Old Testament does not make this idea abundantly clear. And I offered Josephus to show how a contemporary of John broke official beliefs down. If Martha answered as she did, then there could very well have been a widespread fourth point of view, but there remains the question of where it came from. From Christ's teachings alone? From the preachings of others? From a sect not as yet mentioned? Or a different Essene viewpoint?
Then, of course, if Lazarus was a demonstration of what was to happen to us after we die ( the text says that he was dead), then what became of Lazarus after that? There would be a lesson there too.
With regard to the Essenes, for instance, do we know of their beliefs from other sources? Or do we pay any attention to them at all other than for the fact that they held some of our most ancient copies of Scriptures and related texts? What Josephus says about them does not seem to contradict the archeological evidence - unless someone has proof otherwise. And what's more, when it suits, people of very orthodox beliefs are perfectly willing to cite Josephus when it suits their purposes. After all, since Jewish Antiquities paraphrases the OT, then both must be true, no? Furthermore, how do you distinguish one ancient Jewish writer from another in matters of secular or spiritual authority? How is Josephus distinct from Ezra or Nehemiah? Does he not give us the definition of OT canonicity that will be cited forever?
Hannes,
Still devoting some time to the Genesis question. Since there are questions about apparent anachronisms in Genesis and the other books, it is easy to shoot from the hip and dismiss everything. But I think it deserves more investigation at the least. Even if some of the inferences hold water, there are still mysteries enough to keep us occupied - E.g., Just who was Moses?
This admittedly does not directly advance the question about eternal life views, but I did look at some other sources for accounts or pictures of camels. Some fundamentalists say that there are pictures of camels in Egyptian sites, but I have not yet located them in my books about Egypt. The earliest renditions I found of camels on the wall, so to speak, were with Shalmaneezar III of Assyria circa 825 BC. The recent book on Egypt by Toby Wilkonson sayst that Darius I (522-486) introduced camels into Egypt during the Persian occupation in the midst of civil engineering projects such as the building of the original Suez canal. The camels were brought in from Bactrian and Arabian provinces and improved communications with the principal oases. Climate was drying out vs. a millenium earlier.
Perhaps it could be said that this was a "re-introduction" of camels since Abraham's time. But there are other anachronisms to deal with as well. Philistines at Gerar in Genesis is another problem since the Sea Peoples invasion into Egyptian territories is a feature of the 12th century. Explanations are given for individual anachronisms, but when anachronisms are taken together their existence argues persuasively for a late date of writing.
Well, I've got some answers of my own. They are Old Testament, but Deutero-Canonical.
It depends on how you regar"Wisdom". or Wisdom of Solomon, an Alexandrian composition probably predating Philo and drawing from Septuagint texts.
From Chapter 2:
There is a discussion of life as the godless see it and how the believer should be tested and put to torture to see if God will intervene. In answer:
23. For God created human beings to be immortal, he made them as an image of his own nature, Death came into the world only through the Devil's envy, as those who belong to him find to their own cost.
From Chapter 3:
1. But the souls of the upright are in the hands of God, and no torment can touch them.
2. To the unenlightened they appear to die, their departure was regarded as a disaster,
3. their leaving us like an annihilation, but they are at peace.
4. If, as it seemed to us, they suffered punishment, their hope was rich with immortality. slight was their correction, great will their blessings be.
God was putting them to the test and has proved them worthy to be with him; he has tested them like gold in a furnace and accepted them as a pefect burnt offering.
...
10. But the godless will be duly punished for their punished for their reasoning ...
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I open the floor to comments on this one. But it looks to me like the Deutero-Canonical explains New Testament concepts better than the canonical Old Testament. This is an Alexandrian/Hellenic/Jewish outlook not far afield from that of Paul and perhaps one or two of the Gospel writers. It also puts the description of Josephus of the Essenes in perspective.
@ kepler The discrepancy between the views on life in earlier times to those of the time of Christ and his Apostles is in my perspective one of translation/interpretation, not of original understanding and intention. A much telling link between Moses and Prophets on the one side and Christ and Apostles on the other is the Book (and person) of Daniel. The language of the Kingdom is there and the visions of the succeeding empires finding their end in the remaining kingdom of God. There is also the resting (in death) and the rising up to life in the future. The people that are viewed as holy and therefore partakers in the establishing of justice with the coming of a son of man from God. The camels of Genesis appear (as in your archeological reports) in the vicinity of Arabia: Ishmaelite/Midianite caravan, region of Aram (with relatives of Abraham), and perhaps warfare.
Hannes, The example you cite is one which I have trouble with and have written about considerably on this forum. Where to start on this one? Daniel seems to have a good eye for what is going on during the 160s BC and leading up to it. What the book "predicts" after that is contentious. But the book raises more questions than answers about the period in which it was supposedly written. Almost all references to kings, regents and princes are either dead wrong or full of anachronisms. Descriptions of Dariuses could be Darius I or Darius II, but "Darius the Mede"? If you have a copy of a Bible with chapter 14 of Daniel, note that it starts as follows: "When King Astyages joined his ancestors, Cyrus of Persia succeeded him." Bingo. There was no Darius the Mede by the time you get to the end of Daniel! "Daniel was very close to the king, who respected him more than any of his friends." These lines appear in the Septuagint and not in the Masoretic text, and the story that follows relies on less miracle and more detective work than any that preceded. Why it should not make the cut, while many Septuagint verses do, since that is what the Gospel writers referred their readers to, is something of a recent phenomenon. For centuries the deutero-canonical material was included in the King James as well as the Catholic bibles. But what this chapter does is undercut a lot of what precedes it. As I said elsewhere, read a fairly close translation of Thucydides and you will find that the Greeks claim they won the Battle of Marathon against the Medes. The year was 486 BC. Who was their king? Herodotus was even more explicit. He calls Xerxes "king of the Medes in book 9 of the histories. It is not that Darius does not exist in history. The author of Daniel got his ancient history from the Seleccid greeks and he got it half digested. He screws up all over the place. The Hebrew Bible never said that he was a prophet and the only place in the Septuagint where he was mentioed was in Maccabees. Catastrophes heaped on the world such as the 607 BC and 2500 years are the result of Apocalyptic Christians promoting Daniel to a level he was seen at originally and recognized already by many as a late addition to the canon. In Chapter 9, his testimony,even if true, violates the criteria for being a prophet as defined by Josephus in Contra Apion. He cries out there that his people remain in bondage in Babylon, but they had been given permission to leave decades ago.
@kepler
Of course Daniel got it from the Greeks, who do you think ruled Judea about 160bc!
Kepler,
the Darius in Daniel is said to have received the kingdom over the Chaldeans, which shows that he was given it, obviously by Cyrus. After his short reign over the districts of Babylon he died, and according to the numerous cuneiform contract tablets, Cyrus assumed the title King of Babylon in addition to King of Lands not before towards the end of his first year (after the accession year). The rulership over Babylon had been given to a certain Ugbaru, who with much probabability is identical with Darius (the Mede) of Daniel.
Furthermore, Ezekiel refers to Daniel, in order to support his authority, which certainly was questioned by many due to his "collaboration" with the Babylonian Empire that had destroyed God's Temple and the Holy City. The later (fable and fairy tale type) additions to Daniel indicate (in addition to the strong internal evidence) that the original portion was quite a good bit older.
I personally cannot think of many books that impressed me greater than this of Daniel. And not so much because of the detailed prophecies, but because of the great vision and the impressive personality of this important man, who seemed to have been rightly honoured so much by God and men.
The Writiings of the Apostles and Disciples would somehow hang in the air, if Daniel were not the person I perceive him to have been. They would have all been wrong.
More wrong can be found with the critics. They know little - it is very ancient material we are dealing with - but assume much. Their ridicule is more telling then their insistance on absent evidence.
Hannes, Rather than simply resigning myself to disagreeing with you, I thought further about the matter as I was reading some related material. In a book about MidEast archeology (Ebla) I ran into a discussion of similar Biblical controversies. The authors examined the arguments (Pro) for Moses having written the Penteteuch citing versus in the the OT and NT: Malachi 3:33, Nehemiah 8:1 and Luke quoting Christ himself 24:44. Each of these cases they simply cite "the Law of Moses". Now pay close attention to what Christ says in Luke, he speaks of the Law of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms.... What is meant here by the psalms? The title of this book in Hebrew is Mizmor. It is the first book of Writings. Psalms come from the Greek psalmas. What's my point. Josephus and Jesus were speaking of scriptures in the same manner! Aside from what Luke conveys here about Christ fulfilling the Scriptures, he has also revealed how they are supposed to be structured. And Daniel was part of Writings, not Prophets. I intend to discuss this further elsewhere. Hence, much of what has been done with the structure of the Bible by Christian groups has been to subordinate the Bible to objectives of their own.
There is no need to assume Iesous would have followed a categorizing of scriptures to the effect of discounting the book of that one he - in the memory of his disciples - he had termed a prophet.
