Posts by PioneerSchmioneer

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

It took a lot more prep work, usually a month (and still does even without a sacrifice) to prepare because of the limited amount of time one had between the time of slaughter, the fact that all sacrifices had to be done in one place by an entire nation in one spot, and that everyone had to dine before a specific moment.

The historian Josephus records contemporary Passover celebrations in which he estimates that the participants who gathered in Jerusalem to perform the sacrifice in the year 65 CE were “not less than three million” (Josephus, Wars, 2:280). The Talmud (Pesachim 64b) similarly records:
King Agrippa once wished to take a census of the hosts of Israel. He said to the high priest, “Cast your eyes on the Passover offerings.” He took a kidney from each, and 600,000 pairs of kidneys were found there, twice as many as those who departed from Egypt, excluding those who were unclean and those who were on a distant journey, and there was not a single paschal lamb for which more than ten people had not registered; and they called it: “The Passover of the dense throngs.”--The Paschal Sacrifice (Korban Pesach), My Jewish Learning.

The sacrifice of each lamb was divided among a set of three (3) Jewish laypersons in order for it to work and take the lamb home, and it would be even more vital and far more difficult to do if the Passover fell on a literal Sabbath, limiting what a layperson could and could not do:

The people taking part in the sacrifice were divided into three groups. The first of these filled the court of the Temple, so that the gates had to be closed, and while they were killing and offering their Passover lambs the Levites on the platform (dukhan) recited the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), accompanied by instruments of brass. If the Levites finished their recitation before the priests had completed the sacrifice, they repeated the Hallel, although it never happened that they had to repeat it twice. As soon as the first group had offered their sacrifice, the gates were opened to let them out, and their places were taken by the second and third groups successively.
All three groups offered their sacrifice in the manner described, while the Hallel was recited; but the third group was so small that it had always finished before the Levites reached Psalm 116. It was called the "group of the lazy" because it came last....When the sacrifice was completed and the animal was ready for roasting, each one present carried his lamb home, except when the eve of the Passover fell on a Sabbath, in which case it might not be taken away. If the 14th of Nissan fell on the Sabbath, the first group stationed itself on the mount of the Temple in Jerusalem, the second group in the ḥel, the space between the Temple wall and the Temple hall, while the third group remained in the Temple court, thus awaiting the evening, when they took their lambs home and roasted them on a spit of pomegranate-wood, On all other days, they could do it before nightfall (and if the 15th of Nissan fell to be on the Sabbath they would have to).--Passover Sacrifice: The Three Groups of Lay People/The Home Ceremony--Wikipedia.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

And for those wondering, the answer is YES, the Memorial that Jehovah's Witnesses observe is technically on the wrong day, but it isn't totally their fault.

Jehovah's Witnesses did not originate the "annual" practice of observing communion/eucharist on Nisan 14. The idea is partially based on Quartodecimanism, a practice of the early Jewish Christians who observed the Mosaic Law since it was part of their culture and around Easter they celebrated Passover with all the rituals beginning on Nisan 14. They would follow through the rest of the days with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, etc, and of course begin with a seder.

Since the Jewish Christians observed Passover once a year, some Gentile Christians argued that the Church at large should observe the Eucharist/Holy Communion only once a year on the same date. But this was eventually argued against as Gentiles were not required to follow the law (and Passover is not Holy Communion and not a ritual for Gentiles).

Some Adventists, from whom the Bible Students sprang, experimented with returning to observing the Eucharist in a "purer" form, but chose to have it quarterly instead on annually. Jehovah's Witnesses, however, as they pulled away from the Adventists, decided it should be observed annually.

But why did they choose Nisan 14 and not 15 since the Jews observe Passover on the 15th?

It's not entirely clear, but as long as you remember this text, we can straighten things out for everyone (I will use the NWT this time):

In the first month, on the 14th day of the month, at twilight is the Passover to Jehovah. On the 15th day of this month is the Festival of Unleavened Bread to Jehovah.--Leviticus 23:5, 6.

So as long as you remember that the "Festival of Unleavend Bread" is on the 15th, then everything is going to be fine.* Let's begin...

On the first day of the Unleavened Bread, [Nisan 15] the disciples came to Jesus, saying: “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?”...When evening came, he was reclining at the table with the 12 disciples.--Matthew 26:17-20, NWT.

Now on the first day of the Unleavened Bread, [Nisan 15] when they customarily offered up the Passover sacrifice, [Nisan 14] his disciples said to him: “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”...After evening had fallen, [Nisan 15] he came with the Twelve.--Mark 14:12, 17, NWT.

The day of the Unleavened Bread [Nisan 15] now arrived, on which the Passover sacrifice must be offered [Nisan 14]; so Jesus sent Peter and John, saying: “Go and get the Passover ready for us to eat.”--Luke 22:7-8, NWT.

Now most people who are not Jewish often never notice these differences. They might read past this thinking they are talking about one in the same thing. But the sacrifice of the lamb would take place one day and then everything would close down on the next because it was a Sabbath.

“‘On the 15th day of this month is the Festival of Unleavened Bread to Jehovah. Seven days you should eat unleavened bread. On the first day, you will observe a holy convention. You should not do any hard work. But you are to present an offering made by fire to Jehovah for seven days. There will be a holy convention on the seventh day. You should not do any hard work.’”--Leviticus 23:6-8, NWT

People had to have all the lambs slaughtered on Nisan 14 and prepared because by the time one sat down to eat the Passover Seder, it was Nisan 15, and a Sabbath. No work could be done. You had better have your lamps lit and fires going because you could not light new ones until the next evening. You had to have enough food to last you until the next day too, because you could not prepare new food. That was work, and you could not work on the Sabbath. Nor care for a dead body or bury it.

Thus the "Festival of Unleavened Bread" is when you eat the Seder, the event that occurs on Nisan 15. On the afternoon before then, on Nisan 14, as Josephus reported in War of the Jews, lambs were prepared by the thousands for the Passover meal that would begin that night, which was...Nisan 15.

With the Temple gone and after the Diaspora, the Seder plate now carries merely a shank bone in remembrance of those days (and perhaps to mourn the fact that it is gone). There is no more lamb cooked for Passover meals (soup, chicken and sometimes brisket has come to replace it).

Nisan 14 is still important. On that day Jewish houses are cleared of all last remnants of Chametz or leaven, the last preparation in making a house "kosher for Passover."

___

*--I already discussed above that for the sake of catechesis, in the gospel of John, the author takes up the theme "the Lamb of God," and for the this reason, unlike in the Synoptic Gospels, the date for Jesus sacrifice is moved to Nisan 14, the same day that the lambs are slaughtered. This is why I am only concentrating on Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for these gospels state that Jesus died on the night of the Passover Seder meal, Nisan 15.

43

Did Jesus Die On a Stake or a Cross?

by Sea Breeze in

dominic enyart exposes watchtower deception regarding their demonization of the cross.

information packed.

interesting take on paganism as well.

PioneerSchmioneer

Dear scholar JW,

This is what he claims (among other things) does not exist in order for his arguments to work:

It is called the Alexamenos Graffito, and it hangs in the Palatine Museum in Rome. It is from the late 1st or early 2nd century. Etched on a slab, it was made by Romans making fun of a Christian. It states, in Greek:

"Alexamenos worships [his] God."

It is, of course, the etching of a man, worshiping a crucified person, with the crucified person being insulted by given the head of a donkey.

The cross is, of course, the shape of the type testified to by Josephus, Lucias, and secular writers were are also asked in this work to ignore (I am sure you remember because you write as though you have read this work).

Such an act has a name, to "suspend belief," and means to ignore facts or the truth in order to momentarily believe in something, like a work of fiction or a fairy tale.

So say and believe what you want. I am not bothered one bit by your views. Your views are not facts, nor do they change realities.

43

Did Jesus Die On a Stake or a Cross?

by Sea Breeze in

dominic enyart exposes watchtower deception regarding their demonization of the cross.

information packed.

interesting take on paganism as well.

PioneerSchmioneer

And before somebody asks...

It is an old thesis that went nowhere but I remember a few examples. It was philosophical because he asks the reader to first suspend belief that:

The Alaxemenos Graffito never exited
That Josephus never originally wrote about crucifixion in Aramaic (which we know he did, especially "The Jewish Wars")
The Romans never improved upon the Greek pale with inventing the cross
Archeological evidence demonstrating nailings to crosses by the Romans exists

43

Did Jesus Die On a Stake or a Cross?

by Sea Breeze in

dominic enyart exposes watchtower deception regarding their demonization of the cross.

information packed.

interesting take on paganism as well.

PioneerSchmioneer

I actually studied Samuelsson's thesis and sat in on what turned out to be an overblown reaction to his work that ended up being AP getting "egg on their face," so to speak.

The work is a philosophical work not an etymological one (based on the science of language). It is not a critical theory nor does he claim it to be. He does suggest that religion and iconography more than language has more to do with what people know about the crucifixion, and this has shaped what people know about what the gospels say about the event.

Unfortunately, the media claimed that his thesis stated that he wrote that Jesus was 'never nailed to the cross,' which is something he never claimed.

There is a huge difference between a philosophical work and a critical theory about etymology. Gunnar's work is philosophy, not about language.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Kosonen,

With the aid from my friend who is a rabbi, and I quote:

"The problem is merely an ancient one due to the loss of the Temple. In ancient times the celebration did indeed begin on Nisan 14th in the afternoon with the slaughter of thousands of sheep and home preparation of meals. But the evening meal, the seder, that started that night, was the beginning of the 15th, and always the start of the Festival of Unleavened Bread. And that day that started at sundown was always a Sabbath. You could not do any work, any lighting of fires, any cooking, even the slaughtering of the lamb had to be done before that moment. With the Temple gone, Jews today merely observe the Passover seder which begins on the 15th, and it is always considered a Sabbath."

He mentioned the verses in Exodus that you pointed out are often used by Fundamentalists Christians to try to teach Jews that they have the "wrong day," which in reality the Temple is just gone and there is no slaughtering of lambs happening on the 14th.

As Exodus 12:18 says, "in the evening" of the 14th, they would begin the "Festival of Unleavened Bread," because at sundown the 15th of Nisan began and Jewish days begin at sundown.

As I mentioned in my previous post, in John's gospel, the author has Jesus die on Nisan 14, the same day the Jews are slaughtering the lambs. The rabbi said this was correct because the Jews would not be outside demanding the death of a criminal on a Sabbath or Passover or any Jewish holy day. The gospel mentions the Jews demanded the rush of the affixiation process of the criminals on the crosses by having their legs broken because the next day was the Passover--and a "great Sabbath," meaning the next day was going to be Saturday, the regular Sabbath and Passover, which is always considered a Sabbath, no matter what day of the week it lands on.--John 19:31.

In other words, stating that Jesus died on "Preparation Day" in the Gospel of John and not on Passover unlike in the Synoptic Gospels shows that the Jews didn't eat the Passover on Nisan 14.

Josephus, who you yourself quoted, described Nisan 14, Preparation Day, in fact the very last one before the Temple fell in 70 CE, and stated that "from the ninth hour to the eleventh" (from 3 pm to 5 pm) 256,500 lambs were slaughtered in the Temple for the Passover meal.--War of the Jews, VI.9.3.

That would not be possible on a Sabbath because people could not prepare a meal on Passover because you cannot light a fire to prepare a meal on a Sabbath, which the first day of Passover always is. (Ex 35:3) Passover, as my rabbi friend says, has to be on the 15th.

That's where the confusion lies.

Again, John's gospel merely moved Jesus' death to Nisan 14 as a narrative teaching device as the synoptic gospels and the Church Fathers agree that Jesus died on Nisan 15, Passover, and that that particular Passover on which he died was on a Friday, not a Saturday.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Good points, peacefulpete.

Kosonen wrote:

The Israelites celebrated their first Passover the 14th day of the first month and left the same day.

This is a common mistake Christians make due to thinking that Passover begins with "eating." It doesn't. It begins with a sacrifice--or at least it used to. (I got this from my brother who converted to conservative Judaism and from one of my closest friends who is a rabbi.)

The date on the Jewish calendar for Passover is Nisan 14 at sundown, that part is correct. But what starts at Nisan 14 is not eating, but this:

You shall keep [the lamb] until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.

Passover begins with the act of the slaughter of the lamb, "at twilight," a sacrifice--which only later turns into a meal: a communion with God. But since the slaughtering must be done first by the fall of night, it is the 15th when the next festival day begins, the Festival of Unleavened Bread (otherwise there is no bread to eat with the meal...and no meal to eat, period.)

Deuteronomy 1:6 explains:

You will make the Passover sacrifice in the evening, when the sun goes down, at the time when you went forth out of Egypt.

Jewish days go from evening to evening. Thus it was during the daytime, on the 14th, when lambs were gathered and collected, sundown (twilight) when they were slaughered, and thus the 15th when the Passover seder began.

This is why today Jews celebrate their Passover meals on the 15th, not on the 14th. One did not have a meal to eat or celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread until the 15th. The Jews could not have had enough time to gather all those lambs together on the 14th, slaughter them all at "sundown" or "twilight" of the 14th, and have a meal going...which would be the next day on the Jewish calendar, the 15th.

In John's gospel, the author has Jesus die the "day before Passover" on "Preparation day" instead of Passover as in the other accounts. (John 19:14) Why? A narrative device to teach a point.

In John's gospel Jesus is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."--John 1:29, 36

Preparation Day is Nisan 14, the day Jews were gathering lambs to slaughter them for the passover communion meal or seder. In the gospel of John, Jesus is "the Lamb of God," who is slaughtered on Nisan 14 on the eve before Passover, whose "blood" literally gets spilled on wood and bones not crushed, like the Passover lamb of ancient times.--Note the details of John 19:31-37.

Scholars and the Church Fathers agree that the rabbinical figure Jesus of Nazareth died on the 15th on Passover. The author of John was merely using a series of religious motifs to instruct.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

I stand corrected by someone. The Jewish Study Bible, published by JPS, does use the new R and D model for the development of the Five Books of Moses instead of the old JPED hypothesis.

So it is finally being released to the public.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

A footnote to my last post:

The lastest theories of the Old Testament source materials now do away with "document" recreations and redraw the creation of the Hebrew text as N and S or I and J, meaning a composition of writings that weave oral stories from the northern kingdom/Israel and the sourthern kingdom/Judah into what we have today, instead of the varied JPED sources hypothesized by German Protestants from the 1800s. (R and D is actually from the 1990s.)

And I meant to write "Q source" not "Q theory," indicating that over the past 30 + years, scholars have grown to abandon the Q source theory, reflected in the latest NRSVue study edition from HarperOne that I mentioned.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Thanks Peacefulpete. Good info.

The J, E, P, D has largely been replaced by R and D these days with almost no layperson materials yet updated with this, even though this is now the norm for about 30 years or so in modern documentary studies.

What happened was after the Qumran scrolls were discovered, it became clear that there was clearly a redactor, but since the Masoretic theories were far more correct than the Christian methodologies that created the Document Hypothesis it was revised using Jewish critical studies (which were largely ignored).

While the new hypothesis recognized the "possibility" of J, E, and P, it notes that it is more likely that a school of redaction influenced by the Babylonian exile created everything outside of D. So everything is now divided into simply R and D, with R being made up of possibly many sources, but in the end under a central type of redactor of some sort, likely a school of scribes working over a generation, possibly under a great scholar or Jewish prophet.

The latest edition of the NRSV Updated Edition SBL Study Edition from HarperOne is the first new layperson book I've seen with anything close to some of this new data from the past few decades--except it only touches on the New Testament. It published (finally) that scholars no longer hold to the Q theory. It will take another 10 years before the last 30 years of scholary work finally trickles down to study Bibles (and who knows how long before it hits Wikipedia).