Freethought & Rationalism Archive

oatmealia · 10-21-2007, 01:32 PM

I was looking back at an old blog I used to read when I was a fundamentalist when I came across this article:

Zechariah's warning to Bush and Condi

About three-fourths of the way down (six paragraphs from the bottom) the author mentions a bit of prophecy about Jerusalem being a "cup of drunkenness" and a "heavy stone." While I was a fundamentalist I never had a very strong grasp on prophecy, especially not about the nation of Israel -- I was mostly concerned with proving my Christian position, and prophecy about Israel seemed to prove the validity of Judaism, but not necessarily Christianity. Anyhow, when I came across this I started to think about the fact that though in the past I found Jewish national prophecy "useless," it was the only Biblical prophecy that had ever seemed to come true or make any sense. Like in this case -- Jerusalem is indeed a cup of drunkenness for those around her, and many predict that she will end up being a heavy stone for all peoples. Also, I've read about how the Bible claims that the Jewish nation will always keep their identity, and be called vicious names by many. This seems to be true of the Jewish people throughout history.

So, what am I missing here? Jewish national prophecy seems to make some kind of case for Judaism. It's hard for me to go back and study these claims in context, because a) I was never really all that familiar with them, b) I'm not an Old Testament scholar or even all that knowledgable about the OT, and c) it's been a long time since I've read them and I'm not sure where the claims are located.

I hope this thread isn't trivial -- I'm sure many of you know a lot about this, and that there are other uninformed lurkers out there who will benefit from the discussion.

Malachi151 · 10-21-2007, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oatmealia

I was looking back at an old blog I used to read when I was a fundamentalist when I came across this article:

Zechariah's warning to Bush and Condi

About three-fourths of the way down (six paragraphs from the bottom) the author mentions a bit of prophecy about Jerusalem being a "cup of drunkenness" and a "heavy stone." While I was a fundamentalist I never had a very strong grasp on prophecy, especially not about the nation of Israel -- I was mostly concerned with proving my Christian position, and prophecy about Israel seemed to prove the validity of Judaism, but not necessarily Christianity. Anyhow, when I came across this I started to think about the fact that though in the past I found Jewish national prophecy "useless," it was the only Biblical prophecy that had ever seemed to come true or make any sense. Like in this case -- Jerusalem is indeed a cup of drunkenness for those around her, and many predict that she will end up being a heavy stone for all peoples. Also, I've read about how the Bible claims that the Jewish nation will always keep their identity, and be called vicious names by many. This seems to be true of the Jewish people throughout history.

So, what am I missing here? Jewish national prophecy seems to make some kind of case for Judaism. It's hard for me to go back and study these claims in context, because a) I was never really all that familiar with them, b) I'm not an Old Testament scholar or even all that knowledgable about the OT, and c) it's been a long time since I've read them and I'm not sure where the claims are located.

I hope this thread isn't trivial -- I'm sure many of you know a lot about this, and that there are other uninformed lurkers out there who will benefit from the discussion.

You should probably read my article on the Gospel of Mark:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=225107

Actually these types of prophecies were common in all Mediterranean cultures, from the Greeks to the Persians. If you were to go back and read their prophecies you could just as easily make them seem to apply to situations today as well.

Geopolitics doesn't change much. There is war, deception, intrigue, losses, wins, changed of fortune, etc., its all been going on for thousands of years.

From the article in the mentioned thread:

Quote:

The author of the Gospel of Mark was trying to cleverly draw attention to passages in the Hebrew scriptures that discussed the destruction of Israel and the transfer of God's favor to the Gentiles.

This was a subject of Jewish preoccupation for hundreds of years prior to the destruction of Judea in 70 CE, for many reasons. The Gospel of Mark builds on a strong tradition of Jewish criticism within Jewish religion. Indeed one of the overarching topics of the later books of the so-called prophets in the Hebrew cannon is the lack of faith of the Jewish people and how their god's wrath would destroy the Jews because of their lack of faith. This is a theme that emerged from several aspects of Jewish life, most notably that the Jews were a relatively unsuccessful people who suffered subjugation and conquest by other civilizations on a regular basis. The Jews were surrounded by massive powerful empires, such as the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. There was also on-going internal conflict among the Jews over how to worship their god, and even which god to worship. In addition, Jewish culture was consonantly under pressure from outside to adopt the ways of surrounding cultures, which many Jews saw as successful and flourishing cultures while they were often oppressed or less successful. In some Old Testament writings the authors say that God will completely destroy the Jewish people and turn his favor over to the Gentiles. In other writings the author says that God will punish Israel to teach the Jews a lesson but will then come back and make the Jews greater than ever before. The exact sentiments differ from work to work, but the point is that there was an overwhelming theme of impending doom and destruction within the later Jewish scriptures and it is this theme that was picked up on by the author of Mark after the destruction of Judea in 70 CE and used as the subtext for his story. As such, what we find is that many of the literary allusions make references to scriptures that talk about the destruction of Israel and/or the depravity of the Jews.

What emerges from the Gospel of Mark as we look into the subtext of the story is a statement that the Jews had it coming to them and that they brought destruction upon themselves. This subtext, then, makes sense of the Jesus narrative and makes the Jesus story more clear. The Gospel of Mark is not really about Jesus, it is a story that was written in reaction to the destruction of Judea in which the fictional Jesus character plays an allegorical role in taking the reader through the absurdities and depravities of the Judeans to show the reader that the Jews got what they deserved and that they brought destruction upon themselves. The Gospel of Mark is a story that builds upon a Jewish tradition of self-criticism and seeks to make sense of the destruction and horror of the Jewish War with Rome.

Quote:

The Jewish scriptures were preoccupied with destruction and punishment from their god because the Jewish people were surrounded by superpower civilizations. The Jews were often conquered and were often the subjects of others. The result is that there are many tales and predictions of destruction in the Jewish scriptures because Jewish people were frequently being conquered and having their cities destroyed. Not only did this result in many scriptures dealing with destruction, but it also led to a sense among the Jewish people that they, or some elements among them, were causing their god to be angry at them.

What had been a self-critical tendency within Jewish religion and scripture was turned into a weapon in the hands of the Romans. Many Jewish scriptures, and the Gospels themselves, are critical of Jewish society and the Jewish priesthood in ways that were, to some extent, healthy and fostered vigilance against corruption. However, these same scriptures became the very testimony that was used against the Jews by their enemies, essentially condemning them with their own words.

What better way to condemn a people (an insurrectionist group that made up about 10% of the population of the Roman Empire) than to point at their own scriptures and point out that they themselves had predicted their own demise and brought it upon themselves (according to the Gospels) just as they themselves had predicted. The Jewish scriptures themselves became one of the ultimate justifications for the condemnation and suppression of the Jewish population.

-Jay- · 10-22-2007, 04:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oatmealia

So, what am I missing here? Jewish national prophecy seems to make some kind of case for Judaism. It's hard for me to go back and study these claims in context, because a) I was never really all that familiar with them, b) I'm not an Old Testament scholar or even all that knowledgable about the OT, and c) it's been a long time since I've read them and I'm not sure where the claims are located.

I hope this thread isn't trivial -- I'm sure many of you know a lot about this, and that there are other uninformed lurkers out there who will benefit from the discussion.

Nah, it's not trivial. It's a very interesting topic. Malachi51's second quoted paragraph, "This was a subject of Jewish preoccupation...", sets the tone well.

Consider that one of the most important events, if not the key event in Jewish history as presented in the OT is the captivity in Egypt and the subsequent Exodus. Later captivities/occupations, such as the conquest by the Babylonians and the subsequent exile of the Jewish elite were understood in terms of the displeasure of God at the failure of the Hebrews to keep their faith.

It's not surprising that they did this. It's also not surprising that prophets, such as Zechariah, writing around the 6^th century BCE, would call for future woe unto Israel: it had happened before, and could reasonably be expected to happen again.

Prophecy, though, is a funny thing. Time tends to distort it. The Book of Daniel, for example, is traditionally (i.e. conservatively) dated to the 6^th century BCE. Conventional modern scholarship dates it much later - the mid 2^nd century BCE, based largely on historical details. Daniel reinterprets prophecies from Ezekiel, and later is itself reinterpretted by the authors of GMark and later Revelation when the foretold events didn't occur. (Effectively, later authors were saying "when the last prophet said that, he really meant this.")

All that's really happened is that someone wrote down some fairly vague predictions of things that were likely to happen anyway. Later, people reading those predictions through the lenses of hindsight and history see events that seem to fulfil those vague predictions, and declare the prophecy accurate. It's really nothing more than a long-term form of literary cold-reading.

regards,

NinJay

Malachi151 · 10-22-2007, 05:53 AM

What NinJay said, plus, as alluded to, a lot of the so-called "prophecies" that are mentioned in the OT are written after the fact, just like "Jesus' prediction" of destruction in the Gospels, which, of course, are all written AFTER the destruction of Judea.

The same goes for the book of Daniel, and I'm sure many others.

Not only that, but we are dealing with a group of people, and a time and place, where the same stuff was bound to happen over and over again.

When you are the small fish in the pond, you are bound to get beat up on repeatedly.

Writing stories about how you will get beat up in the future, and then getting beat up in the future, isn't anything spectacular when you are small a weak and you engage in actions that tend to get you beat up, like um, refusing to integrate into the Roman empire and pay Roman taxes and follow Roman laws, etc.

-Jay- · 10-22-2007, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

What NinJay said, plus, as alluded to, a lot of the so-called "prophecies" that are mentioned in the OT are written after the fact, just like "Jesus' prediction" of destruction in the Gospels, which, of course, are all written AFTER the destruction of Judea.

It's definitely worth looking into when the Biblical books in question are considered to have been written. Their sequence in the Bible isn't the order in which they were written - nothing in the NT is any earlier than 20-30 years after the claimed lifetime of Jesus, and nothing inthe NTwas written by a direct eyewitness to Jesus activities. Understanding that is important to interpretting the material. (I'm fond of Raymond Brown's Introduction to the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk) as a fairly balanced treatment of contemporary scholarly views. Brown was a Catholic Priest, and died in the mid-1990's, but his work is well regarded, and he does a pretty good job of identifying his personal biases in his text.)

(The same general caveat can be applied to the OT - be mindful of when the books were actually written - they may well be more recent than tradition claims.)

regards,

NinJay

10-21-2007, 01:32 PM	#1
oatmealia Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Midwest Posts: 16	Prophecy about the nation of Israel I was looking back at an old blog I used to read when I was a fundamentalist when I came across this article: Zechariah's warning to Bush and Condi About three-fourths of the way down (six paragraphs from the bottom) the author mentions a bit of prophecy about Jerusalem being a "cup of drunkenness" and a "heavy stone." While I was a fundamentalist I never had a very strong grasp on prophecy, especially not about the nation of Israel -- I was mostly concerned with proving my Christian position, and prophecy about Israel seemed to prove the validity of Judaism, but not necessarily Christianity. Anyhow, when I came across this I started to think about the fact that though in the past I found Jewish national prophecy "useless," it was the only Biblical prophecy that had ever seemed to come true or make any sense. Like in this case -- Jerusalem is indeed a cup of drunkenness for those around her, and many predict that she will end up being a heavy stone for all peoples. Also, I've read about how the Bible claims that the Jewish nation will always keep their identity, and be called vicious names by many. This seems to be true of the Jewish people throughout history. So, what am I missing here? Jewish national prophecy seems to make some kind of case for Judaism. It's hard for me to go back and study these claims in context, because a) I was never really all that familiar with them, b) I'm not an Old Testament scholar or even all that knowledgable about the OT, and c) it's been a long time since I've read them and I'm not sure where the claims are located. I hope this thread isn't trivial -- I'm sure many of you know a lot about this, and that there are other uninformed lurkers out there who will benefit from the discussion.

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10-22-2007, 05:53 AM	#4
Malachi151 Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 8,674	What NinJay said, plus, as alluded to, a lot of the so-called "prophecies" that are mentioned in the OT are written after the fact, just like "Jesus' prediction" of destruction in the Gospels, which, of course, are all written AFTER the destruction of Judea. The same goes for the book of Daniel, and I'm sure many others. Not only that, but we are dealing with a group of people, and a time and place, where the same stuff was bound to happen over and over again. When you are the small fish in the pond, you are bound to get beat up on repeatedly. Writing stories about how you will get beat up in the future, and then getting beat up in the future, isn't anything spectacular when you are small a weak and you engage in actions that tend to get you beat up, like um, refusing to integrate into the Roman empire and pay Roman taxes and follow Roman laws, etc.

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