If you enjoy a challenge, then read this book

by Doug Mason 6 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Doug Mason

  If you enjoy a challenge, I recommend this book: Mind the Gap: How the Jewish Writings between the Old and New Testament Help Us Understand Jesus, by Matthias Henze. Fortress Press.

  One example from the book:

  While there are several individuals in the Bible who are said to be anointed, the word “messiah” or “anointed one” is never used in the Old Testament to designate a future anointed redeemer figure.

  In other words, there are no texts in the Old Testament that know of the concept of a messiah as an awaited agent of God, a descendant of David who will appear to reign over a restored kingdom of Israel at the end of time. That concept of a future messiah was only developed in later times, after the Old Testament.

  There are several “messiahs” in the Old Testament, to be sure, but they are not divine figures of the end of time. They are the kings, priests, and prophets of ancient Israel.

  And yet, when Andrew tells his brother Simon Peter, “We have found the Messiah,” or when the Samaritan woman declares, “I know that the Messiah is coming,” they are not referring to an earthly king, priest, or prophet. They are expressing the hope for a future redeemer figure, the messiah of the end time. We find that concept develop in the literature that was written during the gap years in between the Old and the New Testament.

  There are no texts in the Old Testament that speak of a future messianic figure of the end time. (Henze, pages 58-59)
  
• 

  Magnum

  Thanks. I really like and appreciate the book recommendations I get on this site.
• 

  Doug Mason

  Thanks, Magnum.

  There is one book that I yearn for but it's expensive:

  Companion to Ancient Israel (ed. Susan Niditch; Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2013).

  The article that created my interest is by Mark Smith at Jismor 9.

  http://www.cismor.jp/uploads-images/sites/3/2014/07/723615e7fc0170b6f8c05dd145dd429d4.pdf

  Doug
• 

  HowTheBibleWasCreated

  Someone never read Daniel.

  While you may be quick to point out Daniel phophecies a messah in the time of Judah Maccabee I agree however to the writer that was END TIMES!.

  And future generations of Jews including the Essens agreed by applied Daniel to themselves.
• 

  Phizzy

  Thanks once again Doug for you direction in these matters, another eye-opener for me ! I always imagined that the Jews were awaiting a Messiah figure like the one the Jesus Myth presents, but it seems there is no reason they should have been !

  I am aware that the Qumran Community spoke of a kind of Messiah figure, The Righteous One, or even more than one such figure, but even their ideas are not the same as the idea presented in the N.T are they ?
• 

  Doug Mason

  Hi Phizzy,

  The Qumran Community believed they were living in the very last of the Last Days.

  Judaism was never homogenous, and is still not. Further, it continually evolved, so that the Judaism when the Scriptures were worked on at the time of the Babylonian Exile was not the Judaism at the time of the Judaism of Jesus and his contemporaries. Features of Jesus' Judaism included features that did not exist when the OT texts were being written:

  The religion of the Old Testament is not the Judaism of Jesus. While in the New Testament, Jesus studies and teaches in the synagogues, there are no synagogues in the Old Testament. While in the New Testament, Jesus’s disciples call him rabbi, there are no rabbis in the Old Testament. While in the New Testament, Jesus is often involved in conversations with the Pharisees, there are no Pharisees in the Old Testament. While in the New Testament, Jesus expels demons and unclean spirits, there are no demons in the Old Testament. The list goes on. These are not incidental matters in the life of Jesus. They all stem from the Jewish world to which Jesus belonged. (Henze, page 2)

  And their texts had evolved as the scribes kept making amendments while making the necessary copies.
  

  The Qumran community appears to have expected two Messiahs, one a king the other a priest, with the latter taking precedence.

  The NT writers were aware of the Qumran sect. For example, when Luke has Jesus provide the evidence to John the Baptist (Luke 7:20-22), he adds parts from the Qumran Community's Messianic Apocalypse.

  To answer John [the Baptist]’s doubts and, at the same time, reaffirm Jesus’s identity as the Messiah. Jesus’s reply is remarkably similar to the list in the Messianic Apocalypse from Qumran. The first and last element in Jesus’s response, “to give sight to the blind” and “to proclaim good news to the poor,” are also found in the text from Qumran.

  And there is a third element shared by both texts, the raising of the dead. There is no resurrection language in Isaiah 61. The Messianic Apocalypse and the Gospel of Luke draw heavily on the prophecies found in the book of Isaiah in their respective descriptions of the messiah, and yet, they both go a step further and add to their set of messianic expectations the hope for the resurrection of the dead.

  Luke leaves no doubt that Jesus is the anointed of Isaiah. But he also makes clear that there is more. He adds the resurrection of the dead. That addition, we now know from the Messianic Apocalypse, was not Luke’s invention, but had become a fixed part of the messianic expectations in early Judaism by the time Luke wrote his Gospel. By including it in Jesus’s response, Luke not only draws on the prophet Isaiah, he responds to the expectations expressed in the Messianic Apocalypse. (Henze, page 77)

  Doug
• 

  truth_b_known

  The Watchtower, like most Protestant Christian religions, believes in the Lutheran dogma of Solo Scriptura or "By Scripture Alone." They believe that the Bible is a complete record of all Godly teachings and beliefs. They believe you can come to a complete understanding of Judaic and Christian belief by reading the Bible. They believe you can use one part of the Bible to explain or bring understanding to another part of the Bible. Martin Luther was an Apostate on steroids.

  I wonder how the Watchtower explains the origins of -

  Israel making synagogues

  Rabbis

  Scribes

  Sadducees

  Pharisees

  The Jewish belief in an afterlife as taught by Jehovah's Witnesses was not adopted until the Pharisees came on the scene. The Gospel accounts even record that the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection.

  So that makes for any interesting challenge to present to Jehovah's Witnesses - "Using only your Bible, show me the origins of Rabbis, Synagogues, Scribes, and Pharisees."