Steven Carr

Luke 24
25He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.


http://www.christendom-awake.org/pag...ht_chap1-2.htm

NT Wright writes 'No second-Temple Jewish texts speak of the Messiah being raised from the dead.'

So where did the prophets say that the Messiah had to suffer these things and then enter his glory, if no Jewish texts speak about it?

Steven Carr

Luke 24 is interesting.

NT Wright writes in 'The Resurrection of the Son of God'

'Supposing, wider, that the reason nobody evoked the Old
Testament in the gospel accounts of the resurrection was that there was no immediately apparent point of connection between Jesus' resurrection and the narratives of Jewish tradition?'

But surely Luke 24 does cite the OT?

Luke 24 '45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.....'

Luke 24:49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Here Luke commands people not to leave Jerusalem. According to John , they then all go to Galilee.

What is Wright's solution to this? Simple. Both stories are true.

'From that point, of course, the stories diverge more sharply. Mark's angel tells the women that they and the male disciples will see Jesus in Galilee; Matthew's Jesus does indeed appear there (though actually he appears briefly in Jerusalem as well, in 28.9). Luke's Jesus only appears in and near Jerusalem, and never speaks of going to Galilee, but rather of the need for the disciples to stay in Jerusalem itself. John's Jesus appears first in Jerusalem, and then later in Galilee. If John had not existed, and some bright harmonizer were to declare that the solution to the Mark/Luke divide on this point was that Jesus appeared in both places, such a person would be howled down. The fact that John does it, and that, however fleetingly, Matthew does so too, may, of course, mean that they attract the howls instead, but it might
also cause us to pause before making hasty judgments.'


So don't make hasty judgements that when Jesus commanded people not to leave Jerusalem, he was not telling them to go to Galilee. Both are in the Bible , so both are true, and there is no need to consider that there are reasoned arguments why a command to stay in Jerusalem would prevent people going to Galilee.

People who might say that are not engaging in reasoned argument. They are just howling in derision.

Layman

Which Prophets wrote during the second-temple period?

judge

It seems strange that whoever wrote these verses would have even written them all the while knowing that no such corrobaration existed in the jewish texts don't you think?

Steven Carr

Oh, I see. This 'second-Temple' is a typical Wright qualifier, chosen so he can say that there are no writings, while ignoring any writings there might be which might spoil his case.

Then, when he wants to claim that there ARE writings, as he does when Paul uses 'according to the Scriptures' in 1 Cor. 15, he can drop his Second Temple qualifier, and say that there are writings which say the Messiah would be raised from the dead after 3 days (but where?)

Here is the context of Wright's 'Second Temple' claim:-

'The converse is also important. Let us suppose for a moment that the disciples had become convinced, on other grounds, that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah. (A contemporary analogy suggests itself: the Hasidic Jews of the Lubavitcher movement believe that their Rebbe was indeed the Messiah, and they do not regard his death in 1994 as evidence to the contrary. ) This would not have led the early disciples to say that he had been raised from the dead. A change in the meaning of 'Messiah', yes (since nobody in the first century supposed that the Messiah would die at the hands of the pagans); but not an assertion of his resurrection. No second-Temple Jewish texts speak of the Messiah being raised from the dead. Nobody would have thought of saying, 'I believe that so-and-so really was the Messiah; therefore he must have been raised from the dead.'


As you can see, he had no reason at all to introduce second-Temple Jewish texts, rather than just plain Jewish texts, with no such qualifier.

But where are the prophets who fulfilled Luke 24:46 'He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day...' ??

And why exactly would the disciples have not believed that the Messiah would rise from the dead on the third day, unless this (non-existent) text had been a Second Temple Jewish text, rather than in the Prophets?

Wright claims 'This would not have led the early disciples to say that he had been raised from the dead.' (unless there was a SECOND TEMPLE text which said so, but Wright says there are none.)

Why would the disciples not have been led to say so, if they had read such a thing in say - Judges?

Toto

Perhaps not so strange. As stated Christians had a special way of reading (or reading into) the Scriptures. The three days that Jonah spent in the belly of the fish could be regarded as a prediction that the Messiah would spend three days in the earth before resurrecting. Various verses in Isaiah could be "read" in this special manner to refer to Christ's suffering.

Steven Carr

No stranger than somebody saying there is such corroboration while being unable to do better than cite Hosea 6:2 when asked where.

Where is this corroboration?

Layman

Not at all. The reason Wright is speaking of writings during the second-temple period is because he was examining Jewish beliefs during the second-temple period. The disciples were second-temple Jews.

I think the crux of Wright's argument is that no one during the second-period time would have imagined using those scriptures as proof-texts for Jesus as Messiah unless events had changed their opinion from the perspectives existing during the second-temple period.

I must say, when it comes to 1 Cor. 15, the scriptures relied on to prove the 3-day resurrection seem more like "hindsight" scriptures. Scriptures found after the belief in the 3-day resurrection occurred, rather than the source of such beliefs.

Sure he does. As I explained above, Wright's argument is that the resurrection was not the simple result of the disciples' belief that Jesus was the Messiah. It did not fit into the concept of Messiah that second-temple Jews held. That earlier OT scriptures were used by Christians after the fact to justify their claims is besides the point. Even Mormons used OT and NT scriptures to justify their own positions. That does not mean that Christians during the intervening time shared Mormon beliefs.

In the Hebrew Bible, not the second-temple literature. Luke is not a second-temple Jew.

Because their second-temple preconceptions did not have much place for a Messiah that died and was thereafter resurrected.

Because their understanding of Judges, for example, did not include a reference to a resurrected Messiah. Whether such messianic scriptures actually exist is quite beside the point if no on during second-temple Judaism understood them in such a light.

Layman

It would also be helpful if you included pages citations to Wright's book. I do have some of them and would appreciate the courtesy.

judge

Like a good fundamentalist you are looking for "proof texts". :banghead:

Perhaps you need to think outside the square?