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
Jythier, As a Christian, I assume you respect God's word. Please refer to Lev. 19-20, what we refer to as parasha kedoshim. In it you will find that God does indeed command us to seek holiness and He outlines exactly how to do it. The whole portion outlines a commitment to holy life right down to describing our relationship to strangers. It is nothing short of a call to social action on behalf of the Holy One, blessed be Him name.
Humility is one thing, but describing the image of God as filthy rags is quite another.
Be well.
This sort of thinking is why Christianity may not be monotheistic. Before creation there can be nothing other than the singularity we call God.
Vast Nothingness is God, KFC. So, Ex Nihilo is of God. A such a point in cosmology, we simply have to let go of any possible anthropomorphism. God is not a "being" in any sense we can possibly understand. The scriptures, Hebrew and Christian, were written by and for men who thought anthromorphically regarding a deity. Its time we get out of that box.
The Kabbalists talk about God contracting Himself to make room for His creation. The light of creation was so strong that it burst causing God-coated shards to scatter throughout creation Each time we do a mitzvot (follow a commandment) a shard is returned to God, thus repairing the world. Their way of addressing the "Transcendant God/Immanent" God problem. Neat trick, but another box.
We are talking about a multiplicity of gates to God. Study is but one gate, but mouthing scripture will get you no where. We study to become one with God,, to bring praise and honor top God. We also pray to do the same, and do acts of loving-kindness, as well. These are the three pillars of Judaism. They are also essential to Buddhism and, I suspect, Christianity. My point was belief is not enough, nor is a knowledge of scripture. In fact, these actually blind us to knowing God intimately.
You are making God a being, as if He were bounded.
Hell, Satan, and his angels? From my POV, these are Christian fairy tales with no foundation in reality.
KFC, First, the material of the teacup remains the material of the teacup. It just changes form. Since I experience God as the entire universe with no exception, then all material is a part of God. "Teacup" is simply a name for the form the material has taken. One cannot "break" God.
I hope this helps.
Yet, God created this when He created Man and infused him with free will and an evil inclination. So, God is not responsible for His creation? Or did this omniscient God just want to "test" man, knowing due to His omniscience, how he would do?
Lula, you say God is infinite then say he is not, by suggesting He is not in the same place as evil. First, evil is not an entity, it is a behavior. Since God created the conditions for this behavior to arise, He is at least partly responsible for it. Second, you really must stop thinking of God as a being with human-like attributes. It will stunt your spiritual growth.
As to Job, the text is quite clear that the adversary presented himself to the Lord (Job 1:6). God defends Job, but the adversary (a divine prosecutor, if you will, not the Devil)) teases Him. Later in chapter two, God says that the adversary has "incited" Him to destroy Job. (Job 2:3) God then turns Job over to the adversary to have his way with him, except for his life.
You are correct, I think, to not take these stories as literal, yet many do. They are aggadah, not halakah. Aggadah informs us about spiritual, mystical aspects of our relationship with the divine, as opposed to the halakic aspects of Torah which outline our (Jewish) actual life rules. Now, the question is, why did the author of Job present God and the adversary in this way and use Job's life as an exemplar?
Your explication is interesting and one view among many. Job is a very complex book and has been thrashed around by theologians for millenia.
I am more interested in the cosmological questions. To get to these we must try our best to get to the beginning, ground zero, as it were. Now, from a Buddhist perspective this would be impossible as we argue there is no real beginning, but rather a constant process of change. Within western religion, however, there are starting points, like the Big Bang, or the creation stories in Genesis, etc. At such a point, we ask where is God or more to the point, where is God not? The answer must be, God is everywhere, otherwise he is bounded by some sort of parameter. KFC argues, among many, that the world was created "ex nihilo" yet, where does nothing come but from God, thus a part of "the Infinite" as I refer to Him often. God made himself into earth, sky, animating earth to make man and so forth...all aggadah mind you...stories designed to aid us in making sense of our beginnings. As for me, I cannot imagine a possibility of the absence of God. Even in Hell (as Christians understand the place, God must be. As it is a place made by God, of God, for God's purposes.
Now, such a theology has implications for the nature of the Infinite. This is where I ask you and others to stand outside of the ordinary human habit of thinking in anthropomorphic terms. God cannot be a "being" as we understand the term. He is everything. She is everything. It is everything. Gender and beingness are something we add to God, not that God needs.
Actually, no. I am pointing to another POV, more a admixture of east and west, called panentheism. See link.
This POV has God both making up the universe and apart from the universe, at the same time. Much like the relationship Zen Buddhism suggests between the Relative Truth and the Absolute Truth. Different perspectives of the same thing, truth...or in this case, reality.
We will disgree on the earth aspect, no worries. Let's talk a bit about the spirit aspect. You say God is spirit and he breathed His spirit into us. We Jews say its Ruach Ha-kadosh.
At this point, even if earth were made from something other than God, God has been infused through His breath, into us. Are you then suggesting, what? Perhaps the breath of God leaves us? That the breath of God is not God? Moreover, the phrase "in His image" points to the spiritual investment of man (earth) with the Divine Being's breath, or in other words, the creation of a "soul". A non-dualistic approach, or in other words as I use it, a panentheistic approach, opens us to a realization of complete Oneness. Religious mystical practices of every variety I am aware, gets us to this precise point.
I am not arguing at all that good and evil do not exist, just that they do not exist as beings or entities. Good and evil exist is our minds as judgements of behavior or at least decriptions of the value of that behavior. They are on a continuum of morality: good -to- bad, one line. I do not agree that there is an abode after life. Heaven or Hell, or anything in between. We are with Him in varying degrees from positive to negative in this life. From a my POV, we exist in His abode right now, always. When we live in positive accordance with God, that is at one with Him, we are in heaven. When we are not living at one with God we are living in hell. In either case, He is with us, dwelling within us, it is up to us to open our hearts to Him.
But the sort of thing popularized by Milton? Forget it. Great poetry, but hardly reality.
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