Evad

I think the subject deserves a new thread, avi, so I'm going to give your questions consideration in doing that.

Little Dot

The Jews had a problem with whether the coming of the Messiah would be one of exaltation or lowliness. Since the Messiah is a king sent from God, his coming would be expected to be glorious, and that is what Dan. 7:13,14 pictures. The Messiah would recieve a universal, everlasting kingdom coming with the clouds of heaven.

But Zech.9:9 presents a lowly coming. To get around the difficulty of the two different pictures the rabbis tried to present Zech.9:9 as an exalted coming.

When the Persian emperor Shapur jokingly offered to lend the Jews a horse so their Messiah's mount would be supernatural and he wouldn't have to come on a donkey, Rabbi Samuel said, "Do you have a hundred colored horses? (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a). Samuel was trying to imply that the Messiah's mount wouldn't be ordinary, but, this doesn't fit with Zech.9:9 that explicitly calls the king's coming "lowly".

Then there was Rabbi Joshua that tried to make Dan.7 and Zech.9 alternative possibilities rather than both actually occuring (ibid). If Israel is worthy, the Messiah will come "with the clouds of heaven, If not, he will come "lowly" and riding upon an ass.

The New Testament pictures these two comings as real and successive: the Messiah comes first in lowliness, to suffer and die for his people's sins; later, he returns in power to rescue his people, judge his enemies and reign forever. Since Dan.7 and Zech.9 are not mere possibilities the New Testament is able to connect the lowly coming and
Messiah's sufferings (as the rabbis cannot) with the coming king because they are the same person!

spin

Hell, have we seen Daniel abused like this so often. If you actually read the text you'll find that the one like a son of man was coming up to heaven into the presence of the ancient of days. Note that it is one like a son of man: the figure is in the human form, as the other four beings are like various animals. They represent four powerful kingdoms and the one like a son of man represents the Jews.

The term "son of man" is frequently used in Jewish literature to talk of human beings as mere mortals. In Daniel the figure is not "the son of man", but "like a son of man". It is not a (messianic) title, but a physical description. Most christians have abused and misunderstood Daniel for most of the life of the religion, unable to read such passages in their context as dealing with Jewish history and their liberation. Instead, like other parts of the bible a phrase has been ripped out of its context and perverted for purposes that have nothing to do with the text.

Little Dot

And Melchizedek wasn't a Levite either, yet , Psalm 110 shows that there was a model for a king/priest in the Old Testament:

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. Genesis 14:18

Genesis shows Melchizedek's superior priesthood, since Levi was considered to be in the body (seminally) of Abraham when he paid tithes to Melchizedek.

spin

The politics of the priesthood needs to be followed. We can see the development in the priesthood from sons of Levi into a select group of Levi, the sons of Aaron. In time one family gained preeminence, the sons of Zadok, this was the family that held the high priesthood until they were deposed by Antiochus IV and the remnants of the family moved to Egypt.

When the Hasmonean family took over the high priesthood they were not of the sons of Zadok and thus had no legal claim, but the chosen son was both king and high priest from the time of Aristobulus I. The name Melchizedek means "king of righteousness" with a strong connection to the name Zadok, so "Melchizedek" implied both king and high priest. The book of Jubilees, whose earliest copy is contemporary with the earliest copy of Genesis, does not feature the Melchizedek story, suggesting that it has been added into Genesis. Gen 14 is the only place where the phrase El Elyon, a popular denomination of god in the 2nd c. BCE, is found in the Hebrew bible.

What we see in the figure of Melchizedek is another change in the structure of the priesthood, one that helps bypass the legalities of needing to be a son of Zadok to be high priest, because Melchizedek, the priest-king, superseded the Zadokite line, being earlier than it. Melchizedek is probably a piece of Hasmonean propaganda.

Doug Shaver

So says your dogma, which was embraced by your source for this judgment. The only scholars who perceive them as being unembellished historical records are those who, before studying them, were already convinced that that is what they are.

ahdenai

By similar logic, the opinions of anybody who holds in high esteem such vile and filthy works as the new testament should be ignored, too. Matthew 10:34-37. Vile & Filthy.

Or for that matter, any other religious text.




New testament stories show definite signs of being mythological: they present tales of things that could not have happened. They show signs of being stitched together from various myths that were current at the time, Mithra, Zoroaster, Horus. A bunch of myths.

They are dramatically embellished, by storytellers who had very good reason to be non-objective.

stephan huller

Little spot

Don't forget that from the perspective of Jews (and I presume you Christians too) the covenant with Israel represents a new creation. The priesthood and the Levites had only been established after the Exodus. This was the consecrated priestly line from that point onward - the sons of Aaron are set aside as the priests of Israel, the Levites represent the rest of Israel.

The sons of Levi stand in for the firstborn of Israel and have as their job description the cultic reform in Israel.

The point of our original discussion was why are there two bloodlines of Jesus in the gospels. It is established that one line demonstrated his Davidic ancestry, the other his priestly ancestry.

With respect to this second genealogy, the theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews belongs to a different group entirely. The best guesses about the author connect the text to Alexandria. It has no interest in Jesus priestly descent and uses Melchizedek to prove that the fact that Jesus wasn't a Levite didn't disqualify him from being considered a 'High Priest.'

aa5874

You have put yourself in a little spot.

The genealogies found in gMatthew and gLuke are NOT about the bloodline of Jesus but the bloodline of Joseph.

In gMatthew and gLuke, Jesus got his "bloodline" from a Holy Ghost .

Little Dot

Yeah, well, a wink is as good as a nod to a blind man!