MOSES AND THE COPPER SERPENT......mysterious! (page 3)

james_woods

Those who say they hate reading history don't stop to consider how thinly today is painted over so many yesterdays the previous colors shine through.

Well said. And - how cheap it is to just label everything one does not agree with as "pagan".

Terry

Pagans are interesting people.

They lived outside the city.

Yep. That's what a pagan was. An outside-the-city dweller.

No wonder we don't want to be like them--they live in the suburbs!

Phizzy

I like Burbs, except when they invade my peaceful rural area.

Interesting definition of pagan, Terry.

It fits well with the circumstance in Israel when the Temple (City) based Priests were trying to bring about Monotheism, out in the countryside the illiterate Am Haarets, sons of the soil, or native sods if you prefer, were still worshipping all their Gods of fertile land and good crops or whatever, various Baals and so on, in the "High Places".

This seems to have gone on for centuries, and explains the later attitude of Pharisees and others to the men who were "unlettered and ordinary".

Of course, we only get the Priestly point of view in the Bible books of the O.T.

jhine

I have only just come across this thread and as a Christian it did intrigue me , I had not thought about this in the way you put it Terry . I do read the Bible not just books about it , but sometimes it does help to get background information . So I did a bit of digging and found out that in the Targum it is written

" so that the look was not to the brazen serpent , but to God in heaven ; yea to the word of God , His essential Logos "

Remember this was written by a Rabbi ,not aChristian as an explanation of the incident in the desert .

Jonathan ben Uzziel puts it this way

" and Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a high place , and it was when a serpent had bitten any man , and he looked to the serpent of brass and direced his heart to the name of the word of the Lord he lived "

So Jesus was identifying Himself with the Logos of God , or the Word of God , which Jews would have understood . Jews saw the Logos as emanating from God , so this was essentialy another time that Jesus was claiming oneness with the Father .

Trinity might not be called such in the NT but again by finding understanding of the OT and it's interpretation into the New we see another major hint as to Jesus divinity .

Thank you Terry for prodding me into researching this .

Band on the Run

Jesus never identified himself with the Logos. If he did, life would be much be easier. Scholarly books and articles address Jesus' consciousness of any messianic claim. John writes much later than Jesus' death. He also writes much later than the other evangelists.

The serpent on a brass rod appears to be an influence before monotheism. It is interesting that Genesis has Satan appear in the form of a serpent and now we read about this incident with Moses. Spooky stuff. I never paid much attention to this scripture until I had to give a ministry school presentation on it. This subject does not lend itself to normal conversational flow.

There are such interesting tidbits in the Bible. Funny how they hid all the time I was in the Witnesses.

This is clearly NO hint as to Jesus' divinity. Jesus was not Christian. He was Jewish. Jews believe that God is separate from humans. Christianity developed into a entirely different religion. There is an abudance of historical records that prove no Jew would expect the fulfilment of prophecy that later day Christians so arrogantly and ignorantly assume.

Magical beliefs once again. It is possible to be Christian and literate.

soontobe

marked

hamsterbait

The True believers claim that 3 000 000 people left Egypt.

How BIG exactly would the serpent have to have been to be visible to those furthest away In the camp? Unless it flew up into the sky.

People will believe anything. Where is the evidence of a Brass foundry in the wilderness for that quantity of bRASS???

hb

Terry

I would think more plausible is the idea of the wilderness story as a folk mythos or "just-so" story told to children to explain

how becoming a "chosen people" required many trials and tribulations over a long period of infidelity, tribulation and purification.

For all the millions of people who died in that wilderness in forty years it is awfully strange no archaeological evidence has ever

been discoverd for corroboration.

Maybe a plausible alternative is an accretion of pagan tribal families as refugees in the Land of Canaan until a critical mass was reached.

Then, a rebellion and overthrow followed by a rich, colorful story explaining the transition as miraculous and historically ordained.

mP

@Terry

Ask Lars, he has found them.

jhine

Band on the Run , you say that Jesus never identified Himself with the Logos , well is it not a plausilble explanation, as explained above ,that that is what He is doing by saying " Just as Moses etc " . It makes more sense that He is thinking about that explanation of the incident by the Rabbis in the Targum and that His Jewish listeners would understand the reference than that He is identifying Himself with the snake .

You say that John wrote much later, so what are you implying , that John has put his own spin on the events ? Isn't it just possible , and I am only asking if it is possible that John did understand that reference and posslbly others and realised what Jesus was saying . We should remember that the Jews not only had Torah and the Prophets as we do now but a rich history of Rabbinical interpretation and commentary , which is only available to us when we make the effort to find it .

I know that Jews understand so much more from the OT than we do , they see it as multilayered , the literal reading of a passage being only the top layer .

I have just broken off from typing to look for more information about this , I know that I have it somewhere . Howeverwhile failing to find it , for the moment , I did come across some wriring by a Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum (no me neither ) who is the Founder/ Director of Ariel Ministries , who appear to be part of the Association of Messianic Congregations . No I do not know much about this group apart from the fact that they are Jews who have come to believe that Jesus is Messiah .

He concludes his piece entitled Jewishness and the Trinity by saying

"If the concept of the Tri-Unity of God is not Jewish according to modern Rabbis , then neither are the Hebrew sriptures . Jewish Cristians cannot be accused of having slipped into paganism when they hold to the fact Jesus is the divine Son of God .He is the same one of whom Moses wrote when the Lord said

" Behold , I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared . Beware of HIm and obey His voic ; do not provoke Him , for He will not pardon your transgressions ; for my name is Him . But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak , then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries for My Angel will go before you and bring you into the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites ; and I will cut them off " (Exodus 23: 20-23 Now I know that verse isn't popular and I am not going to go into discussion about what "cut them off "meant and I know that one quote from one Messianic Jewish source is not enough to make anyone change their mind

I do feel that it shows that the issue is complicated Some Jews , at least ,feel that the Hebrew scriptures do support the NT claims about Jesus . We are told that on the road to Emmaus that Jesus explained the OT in relation to Himself to some disciple s Maybe , just Maybe that was at least partly where the NT teaching came from .

I know that this is not going to convince anyone who does not want to believe , and that is up to the individual , I just want to show that the issue is maybe not cut and dried either way .

MOSES AND THE COPPER SERPENT......mysterious!

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