Sauron

Well in this case, it was neither. This is why historical background is important.

According to the tale, Ezekiel was writing this as a exile to Babylon, after the exile of king Jehoiachin in 597 BCE and the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE. And as of these dates, Nebuchadnezzar had not yet started his 13-year-long siege of Tyre.

In point of fact, Tyre had not persecuted Israel. The royal familes of Tyre and Israel were intermarried; cedars from Lebanon were used in building Solomon's temple; and in fact, that temple was built upon a pagan design from a Phoenician temple to Baal Shammem.

Ezekiel was writing to soothe the wounded pride of the Jews, who looked northward and saw a rich and affluent Tyre, apparently still standing free and proud -- perhaps even laughing and snickering at the fate of the little kingdom of Judah. Ezekiel's message can be summed up as "Laugh while you can, asshole. The same destruction is coming to your house as well, and your time is very short." In fact, it point-blank tells us that the reason that God is sending Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Tyre is to punish her for her ambitions against broken Judah:

EZE 26:2 Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:

mata leao

cont...from the North I am going to bring against TyreNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,king of kings,with horses and chariots,with horsemen and a great army.8 he will ravage your settlemets on themainlandd with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you, He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons,His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust Your walls will tremble at the noise of the war horses, wagons, and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through 11The hoofs of his horses will trample all your streets;he will kill your people with the sword and your strong pillars will fall to the ground they will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise theyw ill break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea I will put an end to your noisy songs and the music of your harps will be heard no more I will make you a BARE ROCK, and you will become a place to spread fish nets YOU will never be rebuilt for I the Lord have spoken declares the Sovereign LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Tyre: Will not the coastlands tremble at the sound of your fall when the wounded groan and the slaughter takes place in you Then all the princes of the coast will step down from their thrones and lay aside their robes and take off their embroidered garments clothed with terror they will sit on the ground trembling, every moement appalled at you Then they will take up a lament concerning you and will sayHow are you destroyed OH CITY OF RENOWN,peopled my men of the seas You were a POWER ON THE SEAS, YOU and YOUR CITIZENS, you put your TERROR on all who lived there Now the coastlands tremble on the DAY of your fall, the islands in the sea are terrified at your collapse This is what the sovereign LORD says, when i make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast WATERS COVER YOU, then i will bring you down with those who go down to the pit and you will be no more You will be sought but you will never again be found, declares the Sovereign LORD.

Now, having studied a bit about the nature of Hebrew propehts and how they think and write , an initial 'four corners"/ab initio reading of this text raises many many questions. What always bothered me a bit was this, usually God had a good and righteous reason for a prophesy of doom against another nation or tribe. For example, the many tribes who worshipped false gods and practiced ritual infant sacrifice etc, that God directed the Israelites to slay and destroy( these tribes would reproduce and grow in strength, possibly intermarry with the Israelites and bring their wickedness and apostacy with them, etc.)
1. What has the empire of TYre done to deserve the wrath of God?
2. Why is Tyre any more deserving of wrath than Babylon, the first instrument of that wrath? 3. Is Israel at this time in her hi story in a cycle of obedience or disobedience with God? 4. At this time is Israel in full communion with God pro tanto, as to the law? 5.Is Ezekiel a "righteous prophet" properly consecrated according to Hebraic ritual and is his heart set against TYRe due to TYRE's legitimate wickedness against God's law and people or is Ezekiel "free lancing" here, in jingoistic sabre rattling due to simple national pride and prejudice against the people of TYRE? 6. How far can Babylon's ascendancy progress before Babylon turns and becomes a threat to Israel? 7. Ordinarily, God does not bring his wrath without warning and giving the recipients a chance to repent, for example, God sent Jonah to Ninevah, the destruction of Ninevah was prophecied, but Ninevah repented, therefore the prophecy of the destruction of Ninevah was rescinded.? JOnah at first was told to go to Ninevah but was disobedient, has Ezekiel been told to to to TYRE to warn them, has Ezekiel been righteous, is his heart in the right place? Even as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah were, God gave them a chance to repent and avoid their destruction, what is it about TYRE that is different? or is there no difference? to be cont....

mata leao

cont.....I think next will need to finish out the preliminary discussion of the "life and times" of the Hebrew prophets and their unique pattern of thought and writing and the Hebraic prophetic lexicon and then answer some of the initial questions on the relationship between Israel and Tyre, and then start with the first of the many many analyses of the prophecy. I am trying to see if I can present some of the more liberal theological analyses of this prophecy as well as the more conservative, though I lean to the conservative. The amount of material is quite frankly voluminous. Piecemeal postings will require a long long time. to be cont....

mata leao

cont....sea traders from Sidon and TYre had a partuclarly nefarious practice of purchasing young jewish children and taking them back to sell as slaves. These jewish children were bought from many different groups that had warred against and raided Israel. (attribution Dr. Graaf)....The sea captains of Sidon and Tyre particularly liked to buy young jewish girls who were virgins for their use as sex slaves in the palaces of Sidon and Tyre. Young jewish girls were raped and forced to serve as sex slaves to Princes and Kings of Sidon and Tyre and to wealthy merchants. The raping of jewish virgins also corrupted the levitical priestly bloodline of the Hebrews (This is one thing that would really really anger the Jehovah God of the Hebrews).....(attribution Dr. Heisengert) ,,,,Ezekiel who was a hybrid type of captive/exile himself was aware of this nefarious and humiliating practice (humiliating to jewish fathers and mothers who hads daughters serving as sex slaves to Princes of Tyre,etc) ......to be cont...

Sauron

1. Long, run-on sentences without proper citations aren't going to work. You're going to need to give some kind of attribution for these claims. A Google search on "Tyre" + "Heisengert" produced zero hits. A search on "Tyre Sidon Graaf" produced 86 hits, but you need to narrow it down better.

2. In addition, you're also going to need to explain why -- if all the above were true -- then why wasn't it mentioned by Ezekiel, when he listed the reason why God was sending destruction upon Tyre. I mean, the list of fanciful claims you just posted should have at least been included in Ezekiel's list of complaints against Tyre -- but it wasn't. Not just in Ch 26, but it is also missing from Ch 27 and Ch 28. If these violations of levitical bloodlines and forced idolatry were actually true, it is strange that Ezekiel left them out.

3. Why are you posting each paragraph as a separate post?

4. Finally, instead of posting chunks of scripture in your messages, how about separating your statements from the rest of the work?

mata leao

You do your scholarly research with "Google"? Where did you get your doctorate at Sauron?

Sauron

Handwave.

You have presented zero evidence for your case. And worse, the names you have bandied about apparently either:

(a) don't exist;
(b) do exist, but aren't connected to Tyre

Google? Just one more thing you are ignorant of. Ever heard of Sergey Brin and Larry Page? They were the creators of Google, which started when they were pursuing their PHD doctorate programme in Standford University. The original reason Google was created was to track down references in scholarly citations. So contrary to your flippant response, Google is quite well-suited to that task - providing, of course, that the people in question are relevant scholars in the first place.

Are yours?

John A. Broussard

One way to answer legitimate criticism is to change the subject.

Congratulations.

mata leao

oy vey, it may come as a shock to some, but a very large body of scholarly information is simply not on the internet. 2. In the professions one is taught never to put an index between the research and the data. Indexes require human input and selectivity, some is included and some is discarded. 3. I will see what I can do about "vetting" my sources through your "google" machine! Perhaps you may wish to run a "google " search on "Jewish slaves" and TYre and Greece. 4. You owe me an apology for accusing me of drinking last night when I wasn't- if you have no better manners than that then you won't see me wasting my time with you. 5. I have quite a bit of information which I was planning on posting, it may be helpful to those with a sincere and scholarly interest in the topic of prophecy and the middle east, etc. I have a very heavy schedule of office visits this week, so my next series of posts may be awhile. This time may prove useful for those who need to establish a "baseline" understanding of the basic issues and perhaps expand one's scholarship a bit. THese sources hopefully will be available on your "google" 'oracle" The Book Of Ezekiel by Jim McGuigan, E.A. Wallis Budge "Babylonian Life and History". To be cont........

Sauron

Still waiting for you to give your sources.

Still waiting for you to give your sources.

1. Perhaps you should have done that already, since it is your argument.

2. And to be quite clear: general comments about the slave trade are not sufficient; all ancient peoples engaged in slave trade, including the Israelites. I want to see the specific proof for these claims you made earlier:

...had a partuclarly nefarious practice of purchasing young jewish children and taking them back to sell as slaves. These jewish children were bought from many different groups that had warred against and raided Israel. (attribution Dr. Graaf)....The sea captains of Sidon and Tyre particularly liked to buy young jewish girls who were virgins for their use as sex slaves in the palaces of Sidon and Tyre. Young jewish girls were raped and forced to serve as sex slaves to Princes and Kings of Sidon and Tyre and to wealthy merchants.

I dont' consider drinking a sin, so I wasn't accusing you of anything. I was merely trying to figure out why your posts contained so many run-on sentences, and why you were posting only one paragraph per post.

Apology? You should be apologizing to me, for wasting my time with your posts, while I wait patiently for you to stop stalling and give sources.

Another handwave.

Post the book, research paper, title, location, author, book. If you've got time to post your current paragraph of evasions, then you've got plenty of time to give your sources.

You would do yourself a world of good, if you went back and read this entire thread from the first post. You'll see that myself and several other people already established a basic understanding as well as provided a wide sampling of the available scholarly information.

I assume you mean a different Jim Mcguigan, not the social anthropologist of the same name.

1. You're going to need to give more information about this book; neither Amazon, Powells, Google, or Yahoo have heard of such an author or book. And please tell me this isn't a 30-page self printed tract book.

2. What particular claim are you trying to use this book to support?


1. Now tell us: what does a book on Babylon have to do with Tyre?

2. What particular claim are you trying to use this book to support?