by peacefulpete 6 Replies latest watchtower bible
Does Ezekiel understand Israel to be a people foreign to Caanan? Or does he not see them as indigenous and related to the other nations.
Ezk 16:3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity [is] of the land of Caanan; thy father [was] an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
Pete,
Apearently, Ezekiel dosn't share Genesis account as to the origens of Isreal. Which to me would perhaps be an indication of which is older(the Genesis or that verse in Ezekiel).
The Yahwist epic is older than Ezekiel, but bear in mind that often later texts can preserve more primitive traditions. However, I think we need to be a little careful with Ezekiel 16:3. We read in v. 2 that the entity being addressed is Jerusalem, not Israel or the nation as a whole. The Deuteronomic History indeed places Jerusalem in Canaanite hands even long after the nation of Israel had come into existence (cf. 2 Samuel 5:6-16). Similarly, the "Salem" of Genesis 14:18 (identified in Psalm 110:4 as Jerusalem) was depicted as already in existence in Abraham's day. I also looked up the Ezekiel text in Normann Gottwald's book on the native origins of Israel in Canaan and he does not interpret it as relevant in the same way. Note that Ezekiel also compares Jerusalem with Sodom (a city) and Samaria (a city, which later became the name of the Northern Kingdom):
"Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Your elder sister is Samaria, who lives on your left with her daughters. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lives in your right with her daughters. You have not failed to copy their behavior; throughout your career you have shown yourself more corrupt than they were." (Ezekiel 16:45-47)
So perhaps Ezekiel loosely means the country as the extension of the city. Still, we need to recognize the polemical nature of this text: does Ezekiel mean that Judah descended from the Hittites and Amorites merely because "they have copied their behavior"? Ezekiel says "like mother, like daughter" (v. 44). The other very strange thing in this text is the description of Samaria as the "elder daughter" and Sodom as the "younger daughter". Genesis posits the existence of Sodom in the patriarchical era and destroyed in the days of Abraham, while the Deuteronomic History posits the creation of the Northern Kingdom after the rupture following Solomon's death and Samaria per se originated during the reign of Omri in the 9th century BC (1 Kings 16:24). This would suggest that Ezekiel either ascribed greater antiquity to Samaria than generally believed, or regarded the destruction of Sodom as occurring far more recently than Genesis would suggest (unless his use of the terms "elder" and "younger" could be explained in some other way).
Ezekiel was also knowledgeable of the Abraham patriarchical tradition because he also wrote: "Son of man, the people living in those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, 'Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as our possession' " (Ezekiel 33:24). Compare also this reference to the external origin of Israel:
"On the day I chose Israel, I swore with uplifted hand to the descendants of the house of Jacob and revealed myself to them in Egypt.... When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will show myself holy among them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob." (Ezekiel 20:5; 28:25)
BTW the Assyrians and Babylonians referred to Palestine as "Hatti" and the Akkadians before then used the word "MART.TU" or "Amurru" to refer to the Western regions. This would account for why "Hittite" and "Amorite" are the terms Ezekiel uses to refer to Judah's or Jerusalem's Canaanite forbearers.
Reading the following verses makes clear that the standard explanation offered by apologists is wrong. They would have the verse be describing the spiritual debased condition of fallen Israel, making the parentage symbolic. Yet, the passage is precisely describing the condition of jerusalem(ie Israel) PRIOR to YHWH's adopting them as his own.
16:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 16:2 ?Son of man, confront Jerusalem1 with her abominable practices, 16:3 and say, ?This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. 16:4 As for your birth, on the day you were born, your umbilical cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water;2 you were certainly not rubbed with salt, nor wrapped with clothes.3 16:5 No eye took pity on you or had the compassion to do any of these things for you; you were thrown out into the open4 field5 because you were detested on the day you were born.
16:6 ??I passed by you and saw you kicking around in your blood. I said to you as you lay there in your blood, ?Live!? I said to you as you lay there in your blood, ?Live!?6 16:7 I made you grow like a plant in the field; you grew tall and arrived at the age where you should wear jewelry. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, but you were still naked and bare.
16:8 ??Then I passed by you again and saw that you had reached the age for love.7 I spread my cloak8 over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord , and you became mine.
16:9 ??Then I bathed you in water, washed away the blood on you, and anointed you with fragrant oil. 16:10 I dressed you in embroidered clothing and put sandals made of fine leather on your feet. I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. 16:11 I adorned you with jewelry?I put bracelets on your hands, a necklace around your neck, 16:12 a ring in your nose, earrings on your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. 16:13 You were adorned with gold and silver, while your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidery. You ate the finest flour, honey, and olive oil. You became extremely beautiful and attained the position of queen. 16:14 Your fame9 spread among the nations because of your beauty; your beauty was perfect because of the splendor which I bestowed on you, declares the Sovereign Lord .
16:15 ??But you trusted in your beauty and capitalized on your fame by becoming a prostitute. You offered your sexual favors to every passer-by?your beauty became his! 16:16 You took some of your clothing and made for yourself brightly colored high places; you engaged in prostitution on them. Such things should have never happened nor should they ever happen again! 16:17 You also took your beautiful jewels, some of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution10 with them. 16:18 You took your embroidered clothing and used it to cover them; you offered my oil and my incense to them. 16:19 As for the food that I gave you?the fine flour, olive oil, and honey I fed you?you placed it before them as a soothing aroma. That is exactly what happened, declares the Sovereign Lord .
16:20 ??You took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and you sacrificed them11 as food for the idols to eat. As if your prostitution was not enough, 16:21 you slaughtered my sons and sacrificed them to the idols.12 16:22 But with all your abominable practices and acts of prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking around in your blood.
The book of Ezekiel is as rife with redaction and addition as Jeremiah. This then may explain the contradictory verses in chapt 20 and 33. Tho it may be said that the Genesis tradition does not give the entire promise land to the one man Abraham either.(33:24)
You know, the "Holy Grail" legend as extrapolated by Dan Brown in "The Da Vinci Code" is starting to make more and more sense. That book was about finding the descendants of Christ's blood line and associated documents that would threaten the Catholic church doctrines, or whatever.
The theory is interesting though, since Dan Brown associated Mary Magdalene with the Holy Grail and claimes Da Vinci's depiction of John at the Last Supper was really Mary Magdalene. John is elsewhere depicted as very effeminate, of course.
What doesn't work with this Jesus and Mary Magdalene romance is that Jesus openly acknowledged his love for John and they were both "eunuchs"...(that's right, read between the lines).
But the part of the story that becomes interesting is that John himself, as Jesus' cousin on his mother's side carried the royal blood line and since he was chosen among others "not to die until the Lord comes", that is to live down through time these 1900 years, there is the issue that John likely maintained some of the original documents of Jesus' lineage as well as reliable ancient texts including original NT documents as well. I had wondered loosely why that would be necessary. But with no many rather aggressive and absurb, even desperate attempts to now claim anything that might contradict the Bible, it seems logical, just to cut through the crap, as it were, that at some time these ancient documents that were preserved would be revealed. It doesn't mean John himself as to show up, but these documents might be discovered, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then all the speculation to the contrary would just fade away into the mist.
Thus the quest for the Holy Grail, might be the actual search for the surviving John and these documents he carries, since obviously, those documents would be quite powerful.
In the meantime, those who have faith in the current Bible, including the NT have this little "ace in the hole" of reassurance; knowing that if things get too far out of hand, perhaps even faked documents, some of the original ones will set matters straight. Part of Dan Brown's story was based upon two groups wanting to control the exposure of these documents; one wanting to keep them suppressed and another wanting to expose them. That story is possibly based upon a real scenario with John and whatever documents he has preserved. Of course, most will dismiss any such survival, but those in the Mysteries probably take it seriously and have distorted this search for John into the myth of the search for the Holy Grail, changing the identity of John, the one who Jesus loved, into Mary Magdalene.
JC
I'm sorry that last comment really came out wrong. I meant no disrespect Leoaia, and you may be right, I was just observing that the context seems to disallow the interpretation that the parentage was symbolic of apostacy.
This can be interestingly compared to the treatment of the Exodus/wilderness traditions in Ezekiel 20: Israel is accused of idolatry and disloyalty since its very origin (a critical tradition which runs down to Hellenistic Stephen's discourse in Acts 7):
v 8: But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me; not one of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.
v 13: But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness.
This leads, btw to the very unusual comment that the firstborn (i.e., human) sacrifices in their original sense were actually ordered by Yhwh as a punishment:
v 25f Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the LORD.
