With palms together,
There is an interesting article in the N Y Times today about a stone tablet found amid the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently it suggests that the notion of a suffering messiah who would rise in three days was a common belief in the century prior to the Christian Jesus.
The article suggests:
If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.
Hmmm. The death and resurrection myth prior to Jesus' birth? It would seem this adds to the notion advance some decades ago by a Jewish scholar suggesting this whole Jesus script was a scheme to get Jesus recognized as the Messiah, that Jesus was aware of the things that needd to happen before they happened in order to meet the criteria.
And later:
Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.
But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.
“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”
Strange.
Link
Be well
Leauki,
I am reform, oddly traditional. I observe Shabbat much like you do, I keep kosher (made somewhat easier as I am a vegetarian. I recite daily prayers from mt prayerbook, cover my head in shul, wear tallit during morning prayers, and study Talmud weekly. I was recently elected to the Board of Trustees of my Temple.
I am also a Zen Buddhist. Our community is quite progressive, but respectful of tradition as we are the only synagogue in our city and we need to try to meet the needs of the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist members of our community. Because this is so, we lean more to traditional practices. Our Temple kitchen is kosher, for example. I offer what I call "Zen Judaism" or hitbodedut, Jewish meditation, weekly at the Temple. I teach Jewish spirituality and Jewish history at our Academy of Jewish Learning.
While traditional is many respects (most of our congegants can at least read the prayewrbook in Hebrew) we are also very progressive.
Be well.
Good Morning Lula, may you be a blessing in the universe.
These are a rather large assortment of text citations. You must understand, test has a context. In most cases they prohet is responding to a current situation. He may be talking about a king, such as David or Solomon. He may be taking about a hope for the future, giving solace to the people in the throes of hardship. But to suggest that citations from the Tanakh point to a single individual is like making sense of a horoscope. Prophacy focused Christians seem to do this all the time: ignore the historical context in favor of a contemporanious application. They are like modern day fortune tellers. Which, in my view, is an insult to the prophets and blasphemy of the text.
I'll repeat myself: No where in the Torah, the Writings, or the Prophets is Jesus mentioned or even alluded to. To read Jesus into these texts is like reading tea leaves. Not wise as it demeans the text itself.
MasonM, if you are still reading this, I just noticed you, "With elbows together" LOL
I hope things are well with you. With palms together, a bow to you.
Hello Again, Lula. Strange, your thoughts here. There was no revolution against Christ by Jews. Jews just wanted to be left alone by the missionary Christians, including Paul. There is no such thing as "Talmudic Judaism" either. I fear you are making up language as you go. Again, Talmud is simply a very lengthy and often lively rabbinic discussion regarding how to apply Torah to everyday life. What you should mean is, "Rabbinic Judaism". It doesn't reject Jesus as a person, but rather any claim by him or his followers as to his divinity or messiahship.
Judaism has a long tradition of living to let live. Jews support pluralism. It supports religious freedom. It has always welcomed what are called "righteous strangers" in its midst. True, there are talmudic concerns about Christians studying scripture, but those concerns were about the motives of the study, that is, were Christians trying to learn sacred writings in order to attack Jews? (Something that has, indeed, happened for millenia. (I recall giving you a reference for a 2000 year history of Christian atrocities againsat Jews.) Whereas Jews rarely attack Christians. As Leauki said, as a culture, we just want to be left alone.
Frankly, KFC, I think its wonderful that you have a God named Jesus. I think its wonderful I have a God, I AM. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could pray together? We should each pray in our own ways, respectful of each other. We should each celebrate and respect our religion's holidays.
Its obviously important to you to find Jesus in the Hebrew scripture, to draw parallels of Moses and Jesus, God bless you. As for me, I have the original scripture. I need no new testament. I need no parallels. I have God in my heart and life in each and every moment. May we both be a blessing.
When we become one with the Infinite, we need not worry. When we are one, there is no birth or death, no future or past, just this eternal now. God is like that, awesome, eternal, ever-present, non-dual.
May you be a blessing.
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