by peacefulpete 18 Replies latest watchtower bible
Matt 11:12 Lets discuss it.
12 But from the days of John the baptist until now, the kingdom of the heavens is taken by violence, and [the] violent seize on it.
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12a casts a long period of time between the JtB and Jesus, why?
12b has been translated dozens of ways, the idea of violence associated with the kingdom is interesting from a Jewish rebel standpoint.
Perhaps this was the time God was killed, and hasn't had any sort of interaction with the people of earth since.
About the passage of time "from the days of John the Baptist," this reflects the time of the book was compiled. It is reminiscent of "Moses" in Deuteronomy looking back on all the many years that have passed since the Israelites entered Canaan.
ozziepost....The parallel passage in Luke 16:16 tells against your interpretation: "The Law and the Prophets were until John and since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and every one enters it violently". The violent ones are those entering the kingdom, not those persecuting those entering the kingdom. Just a few verses earlier, we read in Matthew: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother" (Matthew 10:34-35). In the parallel logion in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says: "Men think, perhaps, that is peace which I have come to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is dissension which I have come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword, and war" (16:1). There is also the important Parable of the Assassin:
"Jesus said, 'The Kingdom of the Father is like a certain man who wanted to kill a powerful man. In his own house he drew his sword and struck it into the wall in order to find out whether his hand could carry through. Then he slew the powerful man" (Gospel of Thomas 98:1).
Hope this helps....
The violent imagery seems to be due to dependence on Micah. Note that Matthew 10:34-39, wherein Jesus says that he has come to lay a sword on the earth, paraphrases a non-LXX Greek version of Micah 7:5-6, of "daughter rising up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law," and so forth. As early as Tertullian was it recognized that this gospel passage refers to a prediction of Micah (Contra Maricon, 4.29). As for Luke 16:16=Matthew 11:12, and particularly the use of biastai "violent ones," this passage is possibly dependent on Micah 2:13:
"The one who opens the breach (diakopes) will go up before them. They [the sheep] will break through (diekopsan) and pass through the gate and go out by it. So their king (basileus) will go before them, and the Lord (kurios) at their head". (LXX)
Although the verb is not biazo or biastai "violent ones" in the LXX, interestingly these words render the Hebrew word prts "break through" in Micah in other contexts in the LXX (cf. 2 Samuel 13:25, 27; 2 Kings 5:23), suggesting that the author was dependent on a non-LXX version of Micah that possibly used the word biazo in this passage. In the exegesis of the verse in Q, the one "opening the breach" into the kingdom would have been John the Baptist, the sheep "breaking through" into the kingdom would correspond to his followers, and the "king" and "Lord" would represent Jesus who goes ahead of the sheep and leading them into the kingdom. In the parallel of Luke 16:16, the phrase "everyone enters it [the kingdom] violently" does not seem to assume those attacking the kingdom but those who are striving with forceful effort (like the sheep struggling to enter the breach) to enter it. The thought thus seems close to Micah 2:13.
However, the use of the verb harpazousin "seize" later in the verse suggests a further image: that of soldiers breaking through a city's outer defenses and plundering the treasures within. In fact, this is exactly the interpretation in the Gospel of the Nazoreans which renders this final clause as "the kingdom of heaven is plundered" (cf. the Zion Gospel). The Hebrew word that is equivalent to harpazousin, namely 'chztm, interestingly appears throughout the OT as referring to the Israelites' seizure of Canaan as their inheritance (cf. Genesis 17:8, 48:4; Leviticus 25:34; Joshua 22:9), raising the possibility that the metaphor in the passage is that of Joshua (=Jesus) leading the Israelites (= Jesus' followers) into the kingdom, forcibly entering it with war as the Israelites fought their way into the Promised Land. The Hebrew verb prts in Micah 2:13 is also the basis of the name of Perez, son of Judah, in Genesis 38:29, who in the geneology of Matthew 1:3 was the ancestor of Jesus.
About the passage of time "from the days of John the Baptist," this reflects the time of the book was compiled.
I'm not sure what you mean, are you saying the writer slipped and betrayed his writing as late when referring to John but not his supposed contemporary Jesus who is being "quoted"? That would be possible but incredibly sloppy. How about the idea that the JtB cult was ancient by the time of writing, and the writer of Q had some awarness of this. Arthur Drews suggested that Jon was a historization of the water/fish god Oannes who rose from the water to impart wisdom to men. Was this historization completed a century or more BC? Or how about the Slavonic Josephus story that has JtB appearing before Archelaus to defend himself? Doesn't that make JtB decades older than Jesus? Not that I'm accepting Joe's JtB references in any form as historical (another topic)but that the dates ascribed to this phantom man were not fixed.
I understand the words used can have connotations of pushing and squeezing.
Imagery of being "born again" comes to my mind. To think of folks fighting for the cause by bearing arms wouldn't be in context with the rest of the message.
People were struggling to get in.
I also wonder if there are connotations of the crowds going out to be baptised by John, struggling for an audience.
I understand the words used can have connotations of pushing and squeezing.
Imagery of being "born again" comes to my mind. To think of folks fighting for the cause by bearing arms wouldn't be in context with the rest of the message.People were struggling to get in.
LT:
I was speaking about this thread to a friend today and this was along the lines of what he said too.
Ozzie
But it is entirely in context of the times. Zealot movements were determined to bring on the Kingdom thru violent resistance. There are strong traces of Zealot activity and message in the NT (names of Apostles and stories of cleansing Temple etc). The character of JtB, even as he appears in the NT, fits the model of the Qumran/Essenes who had some relationship with this movement. The violent eschatology of a number of Jewish sects of the day could be read into this passage. The question arises because Eisenman postulates that this and a number of other references to John and the kingdom may be the result of grafting the JtB Messiah with the Jesus Messiah cults.
I should add that Leolaia's comment is helpful to understand the literation of the passage as well as the violent spirit of the message in other places. The Jewish rebellion may have read into the OT wording a furthur justification for their present cause.
LittleToe....I agree that part of the concept was of people "struggling to get in" (cf. the sheep "struggling to enter the breach" in my discussion of Micah), but this does not explain the use of the word harpazousin "seize" in the same verse. I think the parallel of Jesus with Joshua (his OT namesake) and between Christians and the Israelites conquering the Promised Land is probably valid. The Israelites had to "struggle to get into" the Promised Land by fighting those who opposed them and this corresponds to Matthew 10:34-37 in referring to the fight against family members and enemies to enter the kingdom of heaven.
PP....The voice of Jesus in Q is of course the voice of the Q community at the time the sayings gospel was compiled and I don't think it is unusual for "Jesus" to betray the actual temporal standpoint of the community, any more than the "Peter" in 2 Peter looks back all the long years since the time the "apostles" and "fathers" died. It's just as sloppy. But I agree that it could also be possible that Q had a different tradition than Mark and did not conceive of John the Baptist as a contemporary of Jesus.
