capnkirk

I'm not sure what you mean by disagreement here. In the first post, I stated that I agreed with Prof. Efron but did offer some qualifiers. The question in my mind is to what extent the concept of eschaton and apocalypse had penetrated Judaism by the end of the first century BCE. The penetration began at the popular level and slowly wicked upward through the hierarchy, as exempllified by the then-current disagreement between Pharisees and Sadducees over resurrection of the dead. The former said 'yes' while the latter said 'no'. Since the scribes worked for the latter, inclusion of these features into scripture would suggest that the process had been completed rather than its absence signifying that it hadn't started. So, yes, I would call that a 'qualified' disagreement with Prof. Efron (which means that I don't think I stated exactly what Prof. Efron stated).

In the second post, I was disagreeing with Attonitus' statement about the use of the "word" messiah in the OT because IMHO, it overstated Prof. Efron's point.

If you are referring to something different, please explain.

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capnkirk

I think that we must have a semantic issue over the meaning of the bolded phrase. I certainly don't consider the Xtian meaning to be the "absolute use" of the term; that privilege I reserve for the earlier Hebrew usage. As for its use relative to a future figure, see my preceding post.

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Jayhawker Soule

Good corrective. Thanks.

redzrx

Messiah (christian view) and Messiah (jewish view).

The jewish people never looked at a Messiah as a "God" or part of a God.

Do to constant military losses( and excile) the jewish people were looking for a military type savior to lead them back to thier land and a king david type of leader. Better yet a land where others around them would look at them in awe of thier kingdom.

Problem is .. It did not come about. Centuries of foreign military rule and puppet governments and failed uprisings. This back drop led to splinter groups in judism(look at christianity and its diversity) who did not believe that the current priesthood was on their side.

As Capnkirk says the excile gave a insite of another way/religion which seeped into the jewish culture.

The Qmran was one of these splinter groups.. with different views or alternatives to their struggle.

But the Divinity of a messiah (jesus) came about in christian writings only.

1st Century AD!!

I think(own opinion here) is that if many failed (false messiahs) military leaders could not get the jews out of this oppression then why not a divine one .. God himself showing himself "finally" .. Showing the world who the jews really were.. Gods chosen people! Lets call it religious evolution .. if something does not work.. try something else.

This may be a bad example but look at Israel now.. The arabs of palestine are under military rule for 50 years. They fight back but they lose. They cannot fight against the military of Israel with guns because they are out gunned. Then in the 90s they tried suicide bombing . It killed civilians and made martyrs of the bomber and caused fear in jewish society. Their society now looks up to these individuals which gave their life killing jews(their occupiers). They changed the way they fight.

They evolved their views. It became their ideals. (again maybe a bad example).

Back to the post. What Prof. Efron is saying is that the divinity of a messiah is not evident in the jewish writings of the time untill the 1st century and the christian view and in this he is correct. It was a new and improved/evolved concept that may have come from other influences/societies that got into the minds of some people as a way out of the mess they were in.

Sorry for the rambling.

Mario

spin

No, it certainly wasn't "one of these splinter groups." The Dead Sea Scrolls were mainly pre-Pharisaic mainstream temple-centered religious thought, and the writers had nothing to do with the Essenes. The scrolls were not produced at Qumran, which was unable to support a large group of people. They came from the only city able to support the very many scribes indicated by the scrolls, Jerusalem, so we can forget the notion of a sect living at Qumran. (You even have die-hard Essene believing scholars trying to make the artificial caves home for their Essenes because the site itself couldn't support such a group as originally postulated.) One major Israeli archaeologist, Yizhar Hirschfeld showed that Qumran was like a number of other commercial production centres, and another analyst showed that the amount of water stored at Qumran was modest in comparison to other sites. Qumran as a sectarian site of wild scroll production is a dead idea. Many scholars are too dead in the head to know this as yet.


spin

mrmoderate

Using these methods to refute the existance of Jesus of Nazareth would also dispute the existance of any figure in the Hebrew Testament.

Trying to eliminate Christianity by claiming there was no messianic message or prophecy in the Hebrew Testament and then by ignoring anything that points to Jesus's physical existance is just throwing out the baby with the bath water. In this case the baby would be God.

This argument is no different then the Catholic arguments that caused such anti-Jewish sentiments. This is simply a matter of twisting history and the bible to suit a bigoted idea.

redzrx

majority of the scrolls found at the site are consistent with the modern text(hebrew).. I should have said "May have been" .. rather than "were" part of these splinter groups.(my error) . I was trying to make a point in regards to a change in view point of judism .. not the sourse of the change.

I have also read that some of the scrolls at the qumaran site were not stored in jars(to preserve) and some believe that they may have been regarded as incorrect writings or fraudulent. Now Spin I'm not saying I don't disagree with you.. I will make sure I explain myself better in the future.

Mrmoderate.. You said.

Trying to eliminate Christianity by claiming there was no messianic message or prophecy in the Hebrew Testament and then by ignoring anything that points to Jesus's physical existance is just throwing out the baby with the bath water. In this case the baby would be God.
end of quote:


If a society(the jews) believes in a Human messiah for centuries(10s of ) then some group(possible forgien influence) comes along and says your wrong in your assumption of scripture is not ignoring jesus's existance , it is dismissing it as wrong period. Please read "quote on the bible" in BCH.

Thanx ..Mario

capnkirk

In reference to figures in the Hebrew Testament, there are major grounds (archaeological ones) to refute Moses, Abraham, and the Patriarchs, along with the Great Flood, the Exodus, the Hebrew conquest of Canaan, and the power and splendor of King David's and Solomon's empire. In fact, the weight of archaeological evidence points to King Ahab (Jezebel's husband) and the Omride dynasty as the real Israelite power of that time. Most of the evidence once thought to attest to Solomon's building projects, upon more recent and less tendentious examination have been determined to belong to the Omride dynasty. Omride power is even confirmed by cunieform Assyrian records that date to Ahab's time.

Thank you, we have been duly warned. Trying to eliminate Xtianity? What a straw dog! Do you honestly think that the posters to this thread think that we can "eliminate" Xtianity? And I challenge you to present on this thread anything that fits your description: "ignoring anything that points to Jesus's physical existance". We will be more than happy to examine it with you.

And what makes you think that twisting scripture (and in fact rewriting it) began with the Catholic Church? There is overwhelming evidence that the whole Hebrew Testament is rife with it. If you wish to engage in serious discussion and are ready to examine the evidence in an intellectually honest way, then you present your evidence for your position and we'll present ours.

Until then....

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Edited to correct a couple of typos...

Amaleq13

What sort of "commercial production"?

rlogan

OK, I think we got the semantics cleared up.

... now on to eliminating Christianity.

edited to add: