Posts by Leolaia

posted

27
Who is the Faithful and Wise Servant? It's JOSEPH, of course!
by Leolaia in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is the faithful and wise servant?

it's a question that the wt has misused to establish its own authority.

as it is, the parable today as a cautionary tale applies to whoever it fits, but it is clear who the original servant was that inspired the parable.. .
Leolaia

Peacefulpete and Narkissos....Any comments? I would be interested to know if either of you have anything to add.
26
Who is ?The Man of Lawlessness??
by Love_Truth in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is ?the man of lawlessness??.

note: i?d like to ask that only those who have an interest in the bible, it?s interpretation, and believe it is at least partially inspired of god respond to this:.

i?ve always been interested in this scripture in 2 thessalonians 2:3-12 (niv): .
Leolaia

Love_Truth....if you edit the link you posted at the head of the thread, this page would load much better and
would be much easier to read. If you are using Internet Explorer, you can when editing the post, click on the HTML box
and go to the link < A HREF = "http ... .html"> http:// www.biblegospel.com /outrageouslylonghtml... ... .html ,
go into the second url and abbreviate it to something MUCH shorter, like "http:// www.biblegospel.com/ ... /blahblah.html"
26
Who is ?The Man of Lawlessness??
by Love_Truth in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is ?the man of lawlessness??.

note: i?d like to ask that only those who have an interest in the bible, it?s interpretation, and believe it is at least partially inspired of god respond to this:.

i?ve always been interested in this scripture in 2 thessalonians 2:3-12 (niv): .
Leolaia

Love_Truth....I'm at work and don't have my resources with me, but I can turn your
attention to the following excellent webpage which gives a solid overview of the OT, NT,
pseudepigraphal, and other Jewish apocalyptic literature on the subject:
http://www.worldofthebible.com/studies2/antichrist.doc
Here is another thread of mine comparing early Christian apocalypses, where you can compare
and contrast the different themes:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/64923/1.ashx
My view is that within early Christianity, the "Man of Lawlessness" was an apocalyptic
figure who comes prior to the return of the Son of Man, either as Belial himself or a
servant used by him, who (earlier on) defiles the temple by installing an idol of himself
or a pagan god and/or (especially in the later period) leads the world in idolatry and
worship of himself and who persecutes the faithful. False messiahs are a related, but
not identical concept. The "antichrist" of the Johannine literature is also not the same.
Much of the expectation and speculation revolved around the Emperor and his cult. It
started with Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century BC who installed an idol
inside the Temple (inspiring all the speculation on the matter in Daniel), then around
A.D. 44, Caligula threatened to install a statue of himself inside the Temple but died before
he had the chance. So expectations ran high during Nero's reign, during the Jewish War,
during Domitian's time, and during the Second Revolt that such a figure (whether Nero
redivivus or someone else) would be unveiled. It does not refer to a class of Christians or
to "atheists" in general, in fact the latter was not a concern -- it was the emperor cult that
was of great concern in Revelation and 2 Thessalonians (which specifically refers to idolatry
in the Temple -- likely alluding to Caligula's unfulfilled threat).
26
Who is ?The Man of Lawlessness??
by Love_Truth in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is ?the man of lawlessness??.

note: i?d like to ask that only those who have an interest in the bible, it?s interpretation, and believe it is at least partially inspired of god respond to this:.

i?ve always been interested in this scripture in 2 thessalonians 2:3-12 (niv): .
Leolaia

believe it is at least partially inspired of God

Hi Love_Truth:
I'm not sure if you desired me not to reply to this thread, since I do believe it is inspired but not in the same literal "God wrote the Bible" sense as you may have.
But there is in fact a large literature on the "Man of Lawlessness" in pre-Christian Jewish tradition (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls), as well as in early extrabiblical Christian tradition -- much of which shows what sort of character this apocalyptic figure has. I hope I've pointed you to some useful information.
27
Who is the Faithful and Wise Servant? It's JOSEPH, of course!
by Leolaia in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is the faithful and wise servant?

it's a question that the wt has misused to establish its own authority.

as it is, the parable today as a cautionary tale applies to whoever it fits, but it is clear who the original servant was that inspired the parable.. .
Leolaia

nice - so u think the f & d slave in the greek scrips refers to jesus (who is prefigured by Joseph)?

No...I think the f & d slave refers to those disciples who heed the teaching of Jesus. The gospel Jesus invites the listeners to identify him with the "lord" (kurios) who will be coming, the one who has the power to bless or punish the disciples who accepted the word. There is a lot of symbolism here. The use of sitometrion "rations of grain" is significant because it (1) recalls the famine of Joseph and (2) within the gospel "grain" is used to symbolize the word of the kingdom. Thus in the Parable of the Sower "the seed is the word of God" which, when it falls on good soil, that is, "a people with a noble and generous heart who have heard the word and take it to themselves and yield a harvest through their perseverence" (Luke 8:11-15). Paul also has a similar understanding where he says: "I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God made things grow" (1 Corinthians 3:6). The rations of grain that Jesus entrusts to his disciples is like the vineyard in the Parable of the Wicked Husbandman that the "landlord" leases to his tenants as "their inheritance" (Luke 20:9-16). Jesus is passing on to his disciples his teaching, his wisdom -- which in Q and the synoptics constitutes the Word -- and he expects his disciples to pass on the teaching, to plant it in new soil, and reap the benefits. If the apostles do not give out the "rations of grain" in the first place, the Word will not spread and nourish the souls of those starved by the religious authorities of the day. Those who give out the Word must also practice the Word and live righteously. But Jesus stresses that, unlike the Pharisees, they are not to live self-righteously and exalt themselves over their brethren (cf. Luke 9:46-47, 11:43; 14:7-11; 20:46), which is precisely what the WT has done by glorifying themselves as a "prophet", designating themselves as the only way to Jesus and God, and providing their own "food" and not the moral teaching of Jesus (which, of course, is also neglected by many calling themselves "Christian").
27
Who is the Faithful and Wise Servant? It's JOSEPH, of course!
by Leolaia in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is the faithful and wise servant?

it's a question that the wt has misused to establish its own authority.

as it is, the parable today as a cautionary tale applies to whoever it fits, but it is clear who the original servant was that inspired the parable.. .
Leolaia

observador and elderwho.....Thank you for the nice comments... I should point out, again, that I drew heavily on Dale Alison's "The Intertextual Jesus" which helpfully lists all the texts that are connected to the sayings of Jesus in the shared material in Matthew and Luke.
Leolaia
18
I Give Up - Where Can I Find Some Good Beef?
by seeitallclearlynow in
1. jw
2. friends
.

folks, i know that good tasting steaks and ground beef exist - all the years of my youth and when i was raising my family, beef tasted great.

now no matter where i buy it, whole foods, ralph's kosher, black angus, etc, the beef tastes downright nasty.. vons has pretty good beef, and i haven't tried an actual meat market, but where do you find good beef?
Leolaia

I usually get a $60 filet minon slab from Costco and then cut it up, freeze it, and have enough meat for half a year.
27
Who is the Faithful and Wise Servant? It's JOSEPH, of course!
by Leolaia in
1. watchtower
2. bible
who is the faithful and wise servant?

it's a question that the wt has misused to establish its own authority.

as it is, the parable today as a cautionary tale applies to whoever it fits, but it is clear who the original servant was that inspired the parable.. .
Leolaia

Who is the Faithful and Wise Servant? It's a question that the WT has misused to establish its own authority. As it is, the parable today as a cautionary tale applies to whoever it fits, but it is clear who the original servant was that inspired the parable.
Genesis 39:4-5 says that "Joseph found favor in his lord's sight and was pleasing to him, and he appointed him over his house, and all that he had he gave into Joseph's hand. And it happened that after he appointed him over his house, and over all that was his, the Lord blessed the house of the Egyptian." Does that sound familiar in any way? The statement bears close resemblance with the Parable of the Faithful and Wise Servant (Luke 12:42-46) which begins with the question, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom the lord appointed over his house to give them rations of food at the appointed time?" The resemblance in wording is especially close when we examine the original Greek:
Luke 12:42 katestesen ... epi tes oiketeias autou "appointed over his house"
LXX Gen. 39:4 katestesen auton epi tou oikou autou "appointed him over his house"
Genesis 39:4-5 is in fact the ONLY PLACE in the LXX where kathistemi is followed by epi + oik-. The closest other parallels are also from the story of Joseph (cf. Genesis 41:33, 40-43; 45:8; Psalm 105:21). Furthermore, the phrase became almost a stereotyped feature of the story of Joseph, related like a refrain in retellings of the story:
"The king ... appointed him lord over his house (katestesen auton kurion tou oikou autou)." (Psalm 105:21; LXX)
"Potiphar ... appointed (ashemo) Joseph over all of his house (diba kwellu betu)." (Jubilees 39:3)
"Joseph ... received authority over (epi) his fellow-servants and the charge of the whole household....[Potiphar] appointed (kathistato) him steward of his household (tes oikias)." (Philo, Joseph, 37-38)
"This chief officer of Pharaoh entrusted to me his household (ton oikon autou)." (Testament of Joseph 2:1)
"Potiphar ... committed the charge of his household (ton oikon) into his hands." (Josephus, Antiquities 2.39)
"Pharaoh ... appointed (katestesen) him ruler over Egypt and over all his household (eph' holon ton oikon autou)." (Acts 7:9-10)
"Pharaoh ... appointed (katestesen) me chief over (epi) the whole land of Egypt." (Joseph and Asenath 20:9)
Clearly Joseph was well remembered as the servant who had been appointed over the entire house of first Potiphar and then Pharaoh. What about the rest of Luke 12:42? There are four key words: "the lord" (ho kurios), "wise" (phronimos), "servant" (doulos), and "ration of grain" (to sitometrion) usually mistranslated as "food". Each of these terms has its counterpart in the traditions about Joseph. He is appointed by Potiphar, his "lord" (kurios, Genesis 39:3-4). He is especially "wise", as Genesis 41:33, 39 (LXX) applies phronimos to him, and in Psalm 105:21-22 (LXX) we read that Joseph taught wisdom (sophisai) to the elders of Eygpt. Joseph's wisdom was proverbial. Josephus (Antiquities 2.9 applies no fewer than six different synonyms (sophia, sunesis, dexiotes, phronesis, phronema, and logismos) to him, and Artapanus (fr. 2), Philo (Joseph, 117), Acts 7:10, Targum Onq. Genesis 37:3 all describe him as wise as well. Joseph is also his lord's "servant" (pais, Genesis 39:17, 19; 41:12), who had been sold into slavery. Although the LXX uses pais of Joseph, Philo and the Testament of Joseph use doulos to refer to him repeatedly (cf. Testament of Joseph 1:5, 11:2-3, 13:6-8, 15:2; Philo, Joseph 37, 47, 51, 66). And it is Joseph who supplies the rations of grain to Egypt during a time of famine after waiting through seven years of plenty (Genesis 41:53-57), clearly at the proper "appointed time".
Regarding this last point, as Dale Alison argues, though the phrase to sitometrion "ration of grain" does not occur in the LXX, sitos "grain" is one of the key words in the story of Joseph, and the related verb sitometreo "deal out rations of grain" occurs only twice in the LXX -- and both with Joseph as the subject (Genesis 47:12, 14). Artapanus claimed that it was Joseph who discovered food rationing (metra; cf. fr. 2), and Luke's dounai/didonai + to sitometrion "give out rations of grain" recalls expressions throughout the Joseph literature that relate Joseph's deeds:
"your gift of grain (sitodosias)." (Genesis 42:19; cf. 42:33)
"Joseph ... ordered his steward to give them their measures of grain (siton ... dounai memetremenon).... Joseph still gave them grain (siton ... didontos)." (Josephus, Antiquities 2.189)
"He is giving grain (sitodotei) to the whole land....I too will go to my grain giving (sitodosian) and will give grain (doso siton)." (Joseph and Asenath 4:8; 26:3)
The parable in Luke 12:42-46 does not only share vocabulary with the story of Joseph. The situation of the faithful and wise servant is also similar to that of Joseph, not only in the theme of a servant becoming an overseer, but also in the motif of the lord being absent and delayed. According to Genesis 39:16, the lord's wife kept Joseph's garment "until his lord came (heos elthen ho kurios) home." This parallels Luke 12:43 which says: "Blessed is that slave who is doing so when his lord comes (elthon ho kurios autou)", and depicts the slave as present in the lord's home when the lord was absent. Jewish tradition explained that the lord was absent because everyone else had gone to a public festival (cf. Josephus, Ant. 2.45; b. Sotah 36b). Potiphar came home and found his slave not doing what he was supposed to be doing, and his wife told him: "This Hebrew was brought to us to berate us! He came in here to rape me, but I screamed" (Genesis 39:14). This recalls the faithless slave in the parable that figures that his lord "will be a long time in coming, and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women" (Luke 12:45). Luke 12:46-47 next mentions the lord's reaction: whipping the errant slave with "many lashes" and sending him "to the same fate as the unfaithful." This recalls the anger of Potiphar who then "took him and put him in prison" (Genesis 39:20). According to the Testament of Joseph (2:3; 13:9; 14:1-2), Joseph was "beaten" (tupto) -- the exact same verb used in Luke 12:45 to refer to the drunken servant beating the other slaves. An even closer parallel to the text of Luke can be found in the Testament of Joseph:
"If my lord was absent (apedemei), I drank no wine; for three-day periods I would take no food but give it to the poor and the ill. I would awaken early and pray to the Lord, weeping over the Egyptian women of Memphis because she annoyed me exceedingly and relentlessly." (Testament of Joseph 3:5-6)
Here what Joseph says is the exact opposite of the evil slave's actions: "If that slave says in his heart, 'My lord is delaying,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk," and presumably fail to distribute the food rations he was appointed to do (Luke 12:45). In this text, Joseph declares himself to be faithful to his lord's wishes and presupposes that he sometimes carried out his lord's duties while his lord was away. This is precisely the situation in Luke 12:42-46, where we find the phrase elthon ho kurios which corresponds to the elthen ho kurios of Genesis 39:16 (LXX).
If there is any doubt regarding the dependence of Luke 12:42-46 upon the Joseph traditions, it is dismissed by Luke 12:44. Here we read of the lord's returning and finding his servant doing well. Jesus declares: "I tell you that he will appoint him over all his possessions." This is a variation of the original declaration, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom the lord appointed over his household to give them food rations on time?' We find exactly the same pattern in Genesis 39. After we twice read that the master appointed Joseph over his "house" (39:4-5a), the text continues: "The blessing of the Lord was upon all that he owned, in house or field." The blessing itself recalls Luke 12:43 which says "Blessed is that slave whom his lord finds doing so when he comes", but the LXX rendering of "all that he owned" (Heb. kl-'shr ysh-lw) lines up neatly with the Lukan text:
Luke 12:44 epi pasin tois huparkhousin autou
LXX Gen. 39:5b en pasin tois huparkhousin autou
The phrase pasin tois huparkhousin occurs only one other place in the LXX, Judith 8:10, which unlike Luke 12:44 and Genesis 39:5 is not prefaced by a preposition, not followed by a masculine pronoun, and not preceded by the occurrences of kathistemi. The narrative in Judith 8 also bore little resemblance with the parable, unlike the story about Joseph and Potiphar's wife, and Joseph's exaltation under Pharaoh.
Thus we find that the Christian readers of Luke (and its Q predecessor), as followers of a "lord" promising to return, should find in Joseph a role model, particularly as one who was rewarded by Potiphar and later by Pharaoh for his faithful service. Interestingly, Acts 7:9-14 (also written by Luke) relates the story of Joseph and his exaltation as a theme of divine justice and vindication. The eschatological focus in the parable (e.g. referring to an end-time coming of the Lord) is also paralleled by Jewish tradition which focuses on Joseph's actions as prefiguring the Day of Judgment (cf. Jubilees 39:6; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Gen. 39:10; b. Yoma 35b). The Christian reader of Luke 12:42-46 would also think that the servant who says, "My lord is delayed," and then begins to beat others and eat and drink is the antithesis of the good and faithful Joseph; while the faithless servant eats and drinks and gets drunk, the extrabiblical traditions about Joseph go beyond Genesis in telling us that he fasted and refused to drink wine when his lord was away. Philo (Joseph, 45) also has Joseph telling Potiphar's wife that he will not be a "drunkard" (methuo). So it seems pretty clear, as Dale Allison concludes, that the "faithful and wise servant" in Luke intended to evoke the story of Joseph and his positive moral example.
19
Apocryphal Jewish Tradition in the New Testament
by Leolaia in
1. watchtower
2. bible
the nt frequently refers to people and events of the ot, but time and again these references include details and assumptions that do not occur in the original ot narratives.

but these same elements are found, time and again, in extrabiblical jewish tradition.

taken together, we see that the nt writers drew on popular tradition and haggadah on the ot texts and thus preserved traces of these ancient expansions of biblical stories in their own writings.
Leolaia

The NT frequently refers to people and events of the OT, but time and again these references include details and assumptions that do not occur in the original OT narratives. But these same elements are found, time and again, in extrabiblical Jewish tradition. Taken together, we see that the NT writers drew on popular tradition and haggadah on the OT texts and thus preserved traces of these ancient expansions of biblical stories in their own writings. The following are some of the more interesting examples from the literature:
ADAM AND EVE
In Genesis, Adam and Eve both knew the command against eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge (cf. 2:16-17; 3:2-3), both ate from the fruit, both hid from Yahweh in the garden, both are equally cursed by God, and both are banished from the garden. 1 Timothy 2:13-14, however, plcaes the blame squarely on Eve and exonerates Adam: "For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor." The original text however did not say that Adam was not deceived and was not a transgressor. This develops the idea in extrabiblical tradition that blamed Eve entirely for the Fall: "From a woman was sin's beginning, and thanks to her we all must die" (Sirach 25:24). "I created for him a wife so that death might come to him by her... [The devil] entered paradise and corrupted Eve. But he did not contact Adam" (2 Enoch 30:17; 31:6). "Adam said to Eve, 'Why have you brought destruction among us and brought upon us great wrath, which is death gaining rule over all our race? Oh evil woman! Why have you wrought destruction among us?' " (Apocalypse of Moses 14:2; 21:6)
CAIN AND ABEL
In Genesis 4:1, the man "knew" his wife Eve and she gave birth to Cain. Some ancient interpreters believed that the verb "know" only meant that Adam got to know his wife and that someone else was Cain's father. According to Pirqei de R. Eliezer, "The serpent came into her and she became pregnant with Cain, as it says, 'And the man knew his wife Eve.' What did he know? That she was already pregnant from someone else" (21). We also read: "And Adam knew about his wife Eve that she had conceived by Sammael the wicked angel of the Lord, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain." (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 4:1). This interpretation was also suggested by the fact that Eve said that she "acquired a man from the Lord"....where she refers to the baby as a "man" (as angels are called in Genesis 18:2; 32:24) and the "Lord" being understood as "an angel of the Lord". We find an echo of the tradition in 1 John:
"By this it may be seen who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil; whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you heard from the beginning (e.g. the Hebrew name for Genesis is "beginning"), that we should love one another and not be like Cain who was of the Evil One and murdered his brother." (1 John 3:10-12)
In Genesis, Abel is neither good not bad -- the only thing we know is that God showed favor for his sacrifice. There could have various reasons for this. As Philo (Sacrifices of Cain and Abel 14:51), Josephus (Antiquities 1:53-54), and Ambrose of Milan (Cain and Abel 1.3.10) point out, the work of shepherding is more noble than that of farming, since it involves taking care of living animals. There was another idea that Abel's sacrifice was favored by default because Cain offered only leftovers and not the first fruits (cf. Genesis Rabba 22:5; Midrash Tanhuma 9). Similarly, we can note in Genesis that Cain only turned to evil after becoming jealous; there is no hint before his murder that his deeds were evil. But in the NT, Cain is regarded as evil before his murder and Abel as explicitly "righteous":
"And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." (1 John 3:12)
"By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received approval for his righteousness, God bearing witness by accepting his gifts." (Hebrews 11:4)
This builds on statements by Jewish interpreters: "Even though the righteous man [Abel] was younger in time than the wicked one" (Philo, Questions in Genesis 1:59), "He was destroyed in the Flood on account of his righteous brother Abel" (Testament of Benjamin 7:4), "Abel, the younger one, made a practice of virtue ... Cain however was altogether wicked" (Josephus, Antiquities 1:53).
ENOCH
In Genesis 5:12-24, Enoch's death was not registered according to the same formula that occurs throughout the chapter; instead the text says that "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God had taken him". This cryptic phrase could mean that God took his life: "And Enoch walked in the fear of the Lord, and he was not, for the Lord had killed him" (Targum Onkelos, Gen. 5:24). But Hebrews goes further than the text in Genesis and states that Enoch did not die: "By faith was Enoch taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him" (Hebrews 11:5). This reproduces the tradition of Philo (Change of Names, 38): "He was transferred, that is he changed his abode and journeyed as an emigrant from the mortal life to the immortal." Jubilees 10:17 likewise described Enoch as immortal "so that he should report all deeds of each generation on the day of judgment." Jude 14-15 however presents a tradition about Enoch wholly unlike that in the OT:
"It was of these also that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, 'Behold the Lord came with his myriads of his holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.' " (Jude 14-15)
First of all, Enoch was not the seventh generation from Adam -- according to Genesis, he was the sixth. But Jude is dependent on 1 Enoch 60:8 which designates Enoch as "the seventh from Adam." Enoch is also designated as a prophet and the prophecy he gives is actually a combination of two separate statements from 1 Enoch: "Behold, he will arrive with ten million of the holy ones in order to execute judgment upon all. He will destroy the wicked ones and censure all flesh on account of everything that they have done, that which the sinners and the wicked ones committed against him" (1 Enoch 1:9), "You have transgressed and spoken slanderously grave and harsh words with your impure mouths against his greatness" (1 Enoch 5:4). This is perhaps the clearest example of apocryphal tradition in the NT.
NOAH
2 Peter 2:5 calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness". Of course, the Genesis narrative mentions nothing of a preaching work by Noah. The natural interpretation was that Noah would have tried to pass on his divine warning to his contemporaries, perhaps trying to get them to repent and thus be saved. Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 1:73) thus says that "Noah, displeased with the deeds of his [contemporaries] and finding their intentions to be odious, sought to persuade them to adopt a better way of thinking and to change their ways". According to rabbinical literature: "The righteous Noah used to warn them and say to them, 'Repent, for if you do not, God will bring a flood upon you.' " (b. Sanhedrin 108a).
According to Luke 17:26-27, as it was in "the days of Noah," so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man, for "they were eating drinking, marrying, being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark and the Flood came and took them all." This correlation of the primeval history with the story of the End grows out of Jewish tradition, in which the Flood is the prototype of the Last Judgment or the end of the world (cf. Jubilees 20:5-6; 1 Enoch 67:10; 93:4; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:6-7; Apocalypse of Adam 3:3). Because both generations are judged for their actions, there is a suggestion that the activities of "eating and drinking" could carry negative connotations. This is how Theophylact understood the passage: "When the Antichrist comes, people will be giving themselves over to pleasure, reclining at weddings and feasts in the most arrogant manner, just as the giants did in the time of Noah" (Comm. Mt. 123.420). It is in 1 Enoch where all three themes (marriage, eating, and drinking) are mentioned as sinister activities before the Flood:
"And they [the angels] took wives unto themselves, and everyone respectively chose one woman for himself, and they began to go unto them. And they taught them magical medicine, incantations, the cutting of roots, and taught them about plants. And the women became pregnant and gave birth to great giants whose heights were three hundred cubits. These giants consumed the produce of all the people until the people detested feeding them. So the giants turned against the people in order to eat them. And they began to sin against birds, wild beasts, reptiles, and fish. And their flesh was devoured the one by the other, and they drank blood. And then the earth brought an accusation against the oppresors." (1 Enoch 7:1-6)
SODOM AND GOMORRAH
According to Jude, Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for sexual sins having "indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh" (Jude 7), but absolutely nothing is actually stated in the Genesis account about the Sodomites having committed fornication or sexual sins. It only says that the men of Sodom were "evil and very sinful" and that their sin was "very grave" (Genesis 13:13; 18:20). The idea that the sins were of a sexual nature was inspired by the story about "the men of Sodom, both young and old, every one of them" coming to surround Lot's house, demanding to "know" them (i.e. have sexual relations), as it says in Genesis 19:4-5. But no act was actually carried out, and no other sexual sin is mentioned. Ezekiel 16:49-50, in fact, claims that the sins Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for included "pride, surfeit of good, prosperous ease and not aiding the poor and needy". These are the sins mentioned in Sirach 16:8, Josephus (Antiquities 1:194-195), m. Abot 5:10, Pirqei de R. Eliezer 25, and Matthew 10:14-15. But Jude draws on a separate tradition, inspired by Genesis 19:4-5, which claims that the inhabitants of the cities actually indulged in fornication: "You shall commit fornication with the fornication of Sodom, and shall perish, all save a few, and shall renew wanton deeds with women" (Testament of Benjamin 9:1). "You make married women impure, you lie with whores and adulteresses, you marry heathen women, and your sexual relations will be like Sodom and Gomorrah" (Testament of Levi 14:6). Jubilees 16:5-6, 20:5 also mentions that the "punishment of Sodom" executed those with "sexual impurity, uncleanness, and corruption among themselves, they died in sexual impurity." 2 Peter 2:6-8 also characterizes the sin of Sodom as sexual but greatly expands on Lot's reaction to the fornication:
"He rescued the righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the wicked, for by what that righteous man saw and heard as he lived among them, he was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their lawless deeds."
There is nothing in Genesis about Lot's reaction towards the "wickedness" of Sodom -- indeed there's even a hint that Lot was wicked himself. First, we read in Genesis 13:11-13 that Lot "moved his tent up to Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were evil and very sinful against God". Given a choice of where to live in Canaan, Lot had moved right into Sodom -- a questionable choice at best. Then the "three men" are sent to destroy the cities (cf. 19:13), and Abraham pleads with Yahweh to save the cities if only ten righteous people can be found therein. When the angels arrived at the cities, Lot showed them his gracious hospitality and this is what "won [God's] favor" (v. 19) and "Yahweh felt pity for him" (v. 16). So if Lot did not show his kindness, he might have perished (as did his sons-in-law in his household, 19:14-15, 31). Thus Philo (Questions and Answers in Genesis 4:54) concluded: "Lot was saved not for his own sake so much as for the sake of the wise man, Abraham, who had offered prayers for him," and Origen (Homilies on Genesis 5:3) remarked: "If he was able to escape Sodom, as Scripture indicates, he owed this more to Abraham's merits than his own". Yet 2 Peter characterizes Lot as a righteous man who was disturbed by the sin that he witnessed in the cities. This assertion was anticipated by Wisdom 10:6-8 which claimed that Lot was "a righteous man" and the Alphabet of Ben Sira, 268 which referred to Lot as "a wholly righteous man".
ABRAHAM
Luke 16:19-31 tells a parable about a rich man who faces the torments of Hades upon his death, who "looked up and saw Abraham a long way off with Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, pity me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.' 'My son,' Abraham replied, 'remember that during your life good things came your way, just as bad things came the way of Lazarus.' " The conversation between Abraham and the rich man continues for several verses. This whole episode seems to assume that Abraham was not himself sleeping in death but was still living in a state of blessedness. Nowhere does the OT relate a story about an assumption of Abraham's soul to heaven, but such a story does appear in pseudepigraphal tradition -- a story which, in fact, also mentions "the bosom" of Abraham! We read in the Testament of Abraham:
The angels escorted his precious soul and ascended into heaven singing the thrice-holy hymn to God, the master of all, and they set it down for the worship of the God and Father. And after great praise in song and glorification had been offered to the Lord, and when Abraham had worshipped, the undefiled voice of the God and Father came speaking thus: 'Take, then, my friend Abraham into Paradise, where there are the tents of my righteous ones and where the mansions of my holy ones, Isaac and Jacob, are in his bosom, where there is no toil, no grief, no moaning, but peace and exultation and endless life.' " (Testament of Abraham 20:8-14)
The passage also recalls the statement Jesus made to the thief on the cross promising an ascension to Paradise on that day (Luke 23:43), and the Johannine text where Jesus says that "in my Father's house there are many mansions" (John 14:2). Apart from the Testament of Abraham, we also encounter the "bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" in other sources (e.g. Pap. Preisigke (Sb) 2034:11), and according to 4 Maccabees, Jewish martyrs during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes had the following hope: "After our death in this fashion Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will receive us and all our forefathers will praise us" (4 Maccabees 13:17).
JACOB
According to Genesis 28:11-17, Jacob dreamt that "there was a ladder set upon the earth whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and down upon it." The narrative presents the event as a visionary dream, not an actual event. But later Jewish interpreters believed that the dreamt event actually took place and the angels came down from heaven to see Jacob: "And he dreamt and the angels who had accompanied him from his father's house went up to announce to the angels on high, 'Come and see the righteous man whose likeness is set upon the divine throne, and one whom you have wanted to see' Then the holy angels of God went up and down to gaze upon him" (Targum Neophyti, Fr. Gen. 28:12). Although the text said that the ladder was set "upon the earth," these interpreters reinterpreted the latter phrase as saying that "the angels of God were going up and down upon him". This wording anticipates the statement in John:
"Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." (John 1:51)
MOSES
Acts 7:21-22 says: "Pharaoh's daughter adopted him [Moses] and brought him up as her own son, and Moses was educated in all the wisdom of Eygpt, and he was powerful in his words and actions". The statement about Moses being "powerful in words" contrasts with Moses' statement in Exodus 4:10 where he says: "I am not a man of words, but I am heavy of speech and heavy of tongue". But more interesting is the fact that Exodus is completely silent on Moses' education, much less that he was inducted into all the wisdom of Eygpt. Philo (Life of Moses 1:23) however presented such a legend on Moses' instruction: "Arithmetic, geometry, the lore of meter, rhythm, and harmony, and the whole subject of music were imparted to him by learned Egyptians. These further instructed him in the philosophy conveyed in symbols." Ezekiel the Tragedian (Exagoge 36-38) also mentioned Moses' "princely rearing and instruction" and Ephraem (Commentary on Exodus 2:4) also made reference to Moses' "years of education". Another tradition in Hebrews 11:26 claimed that Moses, before casting his lot with the Israelite slaves, had within his gaze "all the treasures of Egypt" which he rejected. This is reminiscent of the tradition in Josephus (Antiquities 2.9.7) which claimed that Pharaoh's daughter designated her son as the future heir to the throne and placed on the child the royal crown which he threw to the ground and trampled underfoot.
According to 2 Timothy 3:8, "Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses," yet no such names occur in the OT and earlier tradition referred to these individuals as Pharaoh's magicians who resisted Moses and Aaron during the ten plagues. The Damascus Document 5:17-19, for instance, mentions that "in days gone by, Moses and Aaron arose by the hand of the Prince of Lights but Belial (i.e. Satan) in his cunning raised up Jannes and his brother when Israel was saved for the first time". The Testament of Solomon 25:2-4 relates the account of a demon who tells Solomon that he "was present at the time when Moses appeared before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, hardening his heart. I am the one whom Jannes and Jambres, those who opposed Moses in Egypt, called to their aid. I am the adversary of Moses in performing signs and wonders." The Book of Jannes and Jambres (fr.) also states: "In the presence of the king, he [Jannes] opposed Moses and his brother Aaron by doing everything they had done".
When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found that there was no water to drink and the people fell to complaining. Moses struck a rock with his staff and people drank from the gushing water. This story however is told as a doublet with two different versions in two different locales. In Exodus 17:1-7, the water miracle took place at Rephidim which Moses dubbed "Massah and Meribah". However some time later, Moses produced the exact same miracle at Kadesh and Moses dubbed these waters "the waters of Meribah" (Numbers 20:7-13). These two water stories likely reflect two independent versions and later interpreters tried to harmonize the stories. One possibility is that whenever Moses produced water from a rock, he called the water "Meribah" because he gave in to the people's demand for water. But this more obvious possibility was ignored in favor of a more extravagent tradition: that the goshing rock had traveled with the Israelites from Rephidim to Kadesh, and that it went on to accompany them during all their subsequent wanderings as their traveling water supply:
"Now he led his people out into the wilderness; for forty years he rained down for them bread from heaven, and brought quail to them from the sea and brought forth a well of water to follow them....And it [the water] followed them in the wilderness forty years and went up into the mountains with them and went down into the plains." (Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 10:7, 11:15)
"And so the well that was with Israel in the desert was like a rock the size of a large container, gushing upwards as if from a narrow-neck flask, going up with them to the mountains and going down with them to the valleys." (Tosefta, Sukkah 3:11)
This interpretation however flatly contradicts the context in Numbers, which explcitly says that "there was no water for the community" (Numbers 20:2). Nevertheless, the same tradition was used and spiritualized by Apostle Paul:
"I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the same cloud, and all passed through the sea, and ... all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them" (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)
The Law given to Moses provided for a Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) during which, if one sincerely repents one's misdeeds, "all your sins" would be atoned for (Leviticus 16:16, 21-22, 30, 34). Since the text plainly says "all your sins," Philo (Special Laws 2:196) and many other interpreters taught the atonement would be for "sins both intentional and unintentional". Others doubted that the atonement could be a blank check and refer only to certain kinds of sins, like those committed by mistake, and not for others: "It says that he will forgive all their transgressions and pardom all their sins. But what does this 'all' mean? It is written and ordained that he will have mercy on all who repent of all their errors once a year" (Jubilees 5:17). "He atones for sins of ignorance by fasting and humbling his soul" (Psalms of Solomon 3:7-8). It was this interpretation (which limits the original extent of the atonement in the Law of Moses) that is adopted in Hebrews:
"But into the second [inner area] only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people" (Hebrews 9:7).
In Leviticus 19:17-18, Yahweh gives a divine commandment to Moses: "You must not bear hatred for your brother in your heart...You must not exact vengeance, nor must you bear a grudge against the children of your people. You must love your neighbor as yourself." From an early date, this commandment was exalted as a central principle that epitomizes all the Torah's laws. In Jubilees, the single command to "love your neighbor/brother as yourself" was given by Abraham and Isaac to their respective children -- a command that anticipates the Torah (20:2; 36:3-4, 7-8). In the Testament of Issachar 7:5-6, this command was combined with another on "loving God with all your strength" which was borrowed from Deuteronomy 6:5: "I loved the Lord with all my might; in the same fashion, I also loved every man as my own children". Philo explicitly designates both as the epitome of the Torah:
"Among the vast number of particular truths and principles studied, two, one might almost say, stand out higher than all the rest, that of relating to God through piety and holiness, and that of relating to fellow men through a love of mankind and of righteousness" (Special Laws 2:63).
The same claim is made in rabbinical literature: "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself -- R. Akiba said: This is the great general principle in the Torah" (Sifra Qedoshim, 4). The exact same claim is made in the NT:
"One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets" (Matthew 22:35-40)
"The commandments ... are summed up in this one sentence, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' " (Romans 13:9)
"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' (Galatians 5:14).
In Jude 9, a legend is related about what happened at the time of Moses' death: "But when the archangel Michael, contending with the Devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, 'Let the Lord rebuke you' ". Jude alludes to the story in a way that assumes that his reading audience was familiar with it, but no such story exists in the OT! According to Origen (De Princ. 3.2.1.), Clement of Alexandria (Adumbr. in Ep. Judæ), and Didymus (Enarr. in Epist. Judæ), the allusion is to the Assumption of Moses, a pseudepigraphal work that described the incident in detail. Unfortunately, the only copy of this book is missing its ending. Fortunately, versions of the same legend are also related in various rabbinical sources:
"A heavenly voice went forth and said to Moses: 'How long will you continue to torture yourself? For you only have two hours left!' Now Sammael, the chief of the Satans, was waiting in anticipation for the time when Moses would die, so that perhaps he would receive his soul like that of other people; he was waiting like someone expecting great happiness. When Michael, Israel's angel, saw Sammael the wicked angel waiting for Moses' death, he lifted up his voice and wept and Sammael the angel was joyful and laughing. Michael said to him, 'Wicked one! I am weeping and you are laughing?' " (Petirat Moshe, in Beit ha-Midrash 1.125)
"At that time God ordered the angel of death, 'Go and bring Moses' soul to me.' Off he went and stood before Moses and said to him, 'Moses, give me your soul.' He said to him, 'You are not even authorized to stand in the place where I stand, yet you say to me, 'Give me your soul?' And thus he rebuked him and went off shame-faced." (Sifrei Deuteronomy, 305)
There was a similar legend concerning Abraham: "And Death said to Abraham, 'Come, kiss my right hand, and may cheerfulness and life and strength come to you.' For Death deceived Abraham. And he kissed his hand and immediately his soul cleaved to the hand of Death. And immediately Michael the archangel stood beside him with multitudes of angels, and they bore his precious soul in their hands in divinely woven linen. And they tended the body of the righteous Abraham with divine ointments and perfumes until the third day after his death. And they buried him in the promised land at the oak of Mamre, while the angels escorted his precious soul and ascended into heaven" (Testament of Abraham 20:8-12). Note that Abraham's body was buried by angels, and Jude focuses on the Devil disputing Moses' body, not his soul, and the implication is that Michael and the angels would be responsible for Moses' burial. This was in fact stated in Jewish tradition:
"He was buried with no one present, surely by no mortal hands but by immortal powers.' (Philo, Moses 2:291)
"The great prophet Moses went up to Mount Nebo in the sight of six hundred thousand Israelites and all the angels were arrayed to receive him. And he was buried there by God." (Tibat Marqa 269a)
"God appeared above him [Moses] with his Memra, and legions of ministering angels were with him. Michael and Gabriel laid out for him a golden couch.... Metatron and Yophiel and Uriel and Yephephiyah, chiefs of wisdom, laid him upon it, and with his Memra he bore him four miles and buried him in the valley just opposite Beth-Peor." (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Deut. 34:6)
The tradition that Moses spiritually ascended into heaven (and thus was not sleeping in death in Sheol/Hades) is also implicit in Mark 9:2-13. In this text Jesus shows his future glory to Peter, James, and John, and "Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus" (v. 4). Elijah is another famous man like Enoch who ascended to heaven without seeing death (cf. 2 Kings 2:11-12).
BALAAM
According to 2 Peter and Jude, Balaam acted according to greed and transgressed against God: "Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing but was rebuked from his own transgression: a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness" (2 Peter 2:15-16). "Woe to them! For they ... abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error" (Jude 11). But that's not what happened in the original story in Numbers. In 22:1-14, Moabite king Balak tried to convince Balaam, a worshipper of Yahweh, to curse the children of Israel. Balaam asked God what he should do, and Balaam refused Balak's offer on his divine counsel. Not satisfied, Balak tried again and "sent chiefs, more numerous and more renowned than the first" who begged Balaam to please go with them and curse the Israelite people (22:15-17). In reply, Balaam specifically rejected material gain: "Even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go against this order of Yahweh my God in anything" (22:18). This is very different from the picture in 2 Peter and Jude. Then God came to Balaam in the middle of the night and said to him, "Have not these men come to summon you? Get up and go with them, but you must do nothing except what I tell you" (22:20). And so Balaam OBEYS Yahweh and saddled his donkey and went out with the Moabite chiefs. All along, Balaam has in fact obeyed God and rejected offers of material gain. And this is when Yahweh changed his mind and sent an angel to block the path and open the mouth of the donkey to speak to Balaam (v. 22-35). Balaam's sin, as the context makes clear, was that he mistakenly cursed his own animal that was (unbeknownst to him) being obediant to God.
This original version of the story must have perplexed readers from a very early date. As early as the Deuteronomist History, interpreters tried to suggest that Balaam actually did intend to curse Israel: "No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord because they hired against you Balaam son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. Nevertheless Yahweh your God would not hearken to Balaam but Yahweh your God turned the curse into a blessing for you" (Deuteronomy 23:3-5). "Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, rose and fought against Israel, and he sent and invited Balaam the son of Beor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you, so I delivered you out of his hand" (Joshua 24:9-10). In the original account in Numbers, on the contrary, Balaam consistently said from the outset that he will only speak what God orders. There is also not yet a hint that Balaam (contrary to Numbers) was motivated by material greed, as claimed by Jude and 2 Peter. It was in extrabiblical Jewish tradition that Balaam became viewed as a thoroughly wicked and greedy individual:
"The envoys then returned to the king without success, but others, selected from more highly reputed courtiers, were at once appointed for the same purpose who brought more money and promised more abundant gifts. Enticed by these present and prospective offers and impressed by the high rank of those who were inviting him, Balaam gave way, again dishonestly alleging a divine command." (Philo, Moses 1:267-268; contrary to this statement, Numbers 22:20 clearly states that God did approach Balaam and command him to go with the envoys)
"Balak fumed and accused him [Balaam] of transgressing the agreement whereby, in exchange for liberal gifts, he had obtained his services." (Josephus, Antiquities, 118)
"Anyone who possesses these three things is of the followers of our father Abraham, but he who possesses three others is of the followers of the wicked Balaam. A good eye, a humble spirit, and a modest appetite -- such belong to the followers of our father Abraham. An evil eye, a haughty spirit, and a large appetite -- these belong to the followers of the wicked Balaam." (m. Abot 5:19)
"And the donkey said to Balaam: 'Where are you going, wicked Balaam? O foollish one! If you are unable to curse me, an unclean beast who will die in the world and will not enter the world to come, how much less are you capable of cursing the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for whose future merit the word was created and whose merit attaches to them?' " (Targum Neophyti, Num. 22:30)
2 Peter and Jude therefore belong to a stream of tradition that altered the intentions, actions, and character of Balaam from that originally stated in Numbers.
RAHAB
In Hebrews 11:31, we encounter the story of "Rahab the prostitute," which according to James was "justified by her deeds because she welcomed the messengers and showed them a different way to leave." (James 2:25). In the original account (Joshua 2:15), Rahab helped the spies down the window but did not show them the way to the window; Josephus (Antiquities, 5.1.2), on the other hand, says that the spies showed themselves the way out. 1 Clement 12:4, on the other hand, in an apocryphal addition to the story has Rahab showing the king's men the way out:
"And when the king's men arrived and said, 'The men spying on our land came to you, bring them out, for so the king commands,' she answered, 'Yes, the men whom you seek came to me, but they left immediately and are already on their way,' and she pointed them in the opposite direction."
More important is the use of the word angelous "messengers" which does not occur in the original Septuagint text of Joshua 2:1, where the spies are called neaniskous "young men". James is dependent on the same tradition as Josephus (Antiquities, 5.1.2) who refers to the spies as "messengers". This tradition links the redemptive acts of Rahab with the hospitality of Lot who also hosted angels in a hostile populace on the eve of the city's destruction.
DAVID
According to Mark 2:25-26, Jesus tells the religious authorities, "Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate consecrated bread?" The allusion is to 1 Samuel 21:1-6, but the story is substantially altered. There were no companions with David on the occasion, and he did not give any of the bread to anyone else to eat. In fact, David's mention of his soldiers in hiding was in fact a lie, a ruse, which Mark took at face value as a statement of fact. But even more striking is the fact that the high priest in the original story is Ahimelech, not his son Abiathar. The mention of Abiathar immediately after "the house of God" certainly implies erroneously that Abiathar was high priest at the time. In addition, Mark may have used the saying of David, "Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here" (1 Samuel 21:3) , to support the action of plucking and eating grain on the sabbath, but the saying does not appear in the Markan version.
The confusion between Ahimelech and Abiathar, however, draws on an earlier confusion between the two in the text of 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. In 2 Samuel 8:17 (LXX-Bal; Vg) and 1 Chronicles 18:16 (ibid., and Peshitta), the text mentions Ahimelech b. Abiathar instead of Abiathar b. Ahimelech. Even the MT in 1 Chronicles 24:6, 31 has this reading' in v. 3 these versions all read 'Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar,' while in v. 31 the MT, LXX-Bal, and Vg. omit the phrase "son of Abiathar," and the Peshitta omits the whole passage. It is reasonable to suppose that this confusion is due to an early corruption of the text, and that in 2 Samuel 8:17 we should read with the Peshitta "Abiathar b. Ahimelech". The Chronicler however must have had 2 Samuel 8:17 before him in its present corrupt form. We thus find a similar confusion in Mark 2:26, even though the text in 1 Samuel is not corrupt.
There is a rather obscure statement in Acts 2:34 that specifies that "David himself never ascended to heaven". The obvious question that arises from this remark is -- who ever believed that David ascended to heaven? It was through a midrash of Psalm 16:8-11 that it came to be believed that David (as the author of the psalm) was not left behind in Sheol but was redeemed into paradise. This view was expressed in the first century B.C. Apocalypse of Zephaniah:
"Then a great angel came forth having a golden trumpet in his hand, and he blew it three times over my head, saying, 'Be courageous! O one who has triumphed. Prevail! O one who has prevailed. For you have triumphed over the accuser, and you have escaped from the abyss and Hades. You will now cross over the crossing place. For your name is written in the Book of the Living.' I wanted to embrace him, but I was unable to embrace the great angel because his glory is great. Then he ran to all the righteous ones, namely, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Enoch and Elijah and David. He spoke with them as friend to friend speaking with one another. (Apocalypse of Zephaniah 9:1-5)
A later Christian Apocalypse of Paul, inspired by the experience in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4, elaborates this notion further:
"And I saw in the midst of the city an altar exceeding high. And there was one standing by the altar whose face shined like the sun, and he held in his hands a psaltery and an harp and sang praises, saying: 'Alleluia.' And his voice filled all the city. And when all that were upon the towers and the gates heard him, they answered: 'Alleluia,' so that the foundations of the city were shaken. And I asked the angel and said: 'Who is this, Lord, that is of so great might?' And the angel said to me: 'This is David. This is the city of Jerusalem; and when Christ the king of eternity shall come in the fullness of his kingdom, he shall again go before him to sing praises, and all the righteous together shall sing praises, answering: "Alleluia" '. And I said: 'Lord, how is it that David only above the rest of the saints is at the beginning of singing praises?' And the angel answered and said to me: 'Because Christ the Son of God sits at the right hand of his Father, this David shall sing praises before him in the seventh heaven.' " (Apocalypse of Paul 29)
More to follow....
19
Apocryphal Jewish Tradition in the New Testament
by Leolaia in
1. watchtower
2. bible
the nt frequently refers to people and events of the ot, but time and again these references include details and assumptions that do not occur in the original ot narratives.

but these same elements are found, time and again, in extrabiblical jewish tradition.

taken together, we see that the nt writers drew on popular tradition and haggadah on the ot texts and thus preserved traces of these ancient expansions of biblical stories in their own writings.
Leolaia

Okay, I've just added some new stuff and since I can no longer edit the first message, I'll post the updated version below. It has new stuff on Noah, Abraham, Moses, Rahab, David, etc. Enjoy....