Secret PathNotes and discussion

Friday, November 13, 2020

Good and plenty: Notes

1a. Some background information comes from BibleAtlas.com and BiblePlaces.com

1. Luke omits a second mass feeding miracle, as does John. In the case of Luke, we are aware that its author used Mark as an important source, as did Matthew's author. In the case of John, the similarity to Mark's account is close enough that we may assume John's author either took the episode from Mark or that both writers used the same source.
It seems very plausible that Mark records two variants of the same event, though we cannot be sure Jesus did not perform two feeding miracles. We may notice that in the first feeding of the 5,000, five loaves and two fish were brought forward. That is, there were seven items of food, with seven being a number thought by many Jews of the period to imply some sort of divine completion. In the case of the feeding of the 4,000, offered were seven loaves of bread and a few (no number specified) fish, with the number seven again being highlighted. That certainly sounds like two tellings of the same event.
But clearly the author of Mark, followed by the author of Matthew, saw significance in the two separate feedings. (See xxx.)
Also, the second feeding permitted the Marcan writer to use a favorite literary device: the "sandwich." If you read Mark separately, you may notice that he will "sandwich in" material between one passage and its associated passage. Thus, he placed a group of teachings and miracle episodes between the two mass feedings.
In any case, this book accepts the lead of Luke and John, focusing on one mass feeding.

2. The poverty of a typical poor person in Jesus' time is almost unimaginable to the modern American mind. We tend to lose sight of how really wonderful was Jesus' declaration that poor people, who counted for nothing back then, would be given great things.

3. We cannot be altogether certain that more than one recollected episode has not been sewn together here, principally by the writer of Mark. That is, the walking on water may not have occurred on the night of the feeding miracle. Perhaps on one night they were headed back to Bethsaida, and another time they sailed for Gennesaret, an ancient port town.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Tell the Jews: Notes

1a. The writer of Luke tells us that 70 men were sent out, as opposed to Matthew and Mark, which restrict the mission to the twelve apostles. The Lukan writer chose the number 70 in order to indicate a spiritually complete, or perfect, amount. No doubt an early editor, aware that the number was not intended to convey mathematical precision, thought it good to incorporate the number 12, in order to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, and possibly to harmonize with Mark and Matthew. Plainly, 72 = 6x12.
Either number is "correct" in accordance with the prevailing standards. Somewhere between 50 and 100 men is probably meant. And no doubt the writer and/or editor thought Jesus would inevitably send out just the right number of men.
Matthew's account of the sending out of the twelve is quite likely drawn from Mark's. Mark has only sketchy information, whereas the writer of Luke took pains to check facts where he could. Thus, he comes up with a more realistic number of 70 men sent to fan out through the towns to prepare for a visit by Jesus. An editor, in my view, then tweaked that number to 72, so that Mark's concept of 12 apostles for each tribe of Israel was respected.
In any case, here we have an example of a "discrepancy" that, on closer inspection, turns out to not be a discrepancy at all.

1. Jesus and his disciples experienced intense political animosity during his earthly mission. But his warnings pointed to later periods in which Christians suffered dreadful persecutions both at the hands of the Romans and the Jews. Under Roman rule, Jewish authorities could penalize someone with up to 39 lashes without getting Roman permission.

2. Because this assertion has proved so difficult to interpret, no one believes the early Christians made it up and put it in Jesus' mouth. So a number of scholars have thought that Jesus made a (rather awful) mistake. His anticipated second coming still hasn't occurred, after 2,000 years! But, was Jesus referring specifically to his so-called second coming? Did he not come with power at the Feast of Pentecost some 40 days after his death and resurrection? And it was certainly true that the apostles had yet to reach everyone in the House of Israel when that happened.
For more on this topic, please see my article,

On the Kingdom of Heaven

https://zioncallingyou.blogspot.com/2020/02/appendix-b-concerning-kingdom-of-heaven.html

3. We may notice here that, according to the source used for Matthew and Luke, Jesus casts body and soul as two different entities – though he does not say that the soul exists without a body.

4. See The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (London: Nath. Ponder 1678).

5. We are disregarding the apparent chronology of John. That book is a literary and spiritual masterpiece. But the order of events related is given for teaching, and not for historical, reasons. (That observation should not be taken to mean that there are no historically valid memories recorded in John.)

Illustrations from agriculture: Notes

1. In the next teaching, Jesus tells us about those among humans who have been generated by the Devil.

2. Dogs and pigs. I have inserted these words here in order to amplify the meaning of what Jesus was saying. Consider
Matthew 7:6

You don't give Temple food to the dogs,
neither do you toss pearls to pigs,
or they might trample them and turn and tear you up.

3. Jesus is speaking here of all who are destined for salvation. You are wondering, why would God be so cruel as to predestine some for the furnace? The answer is that those who are to be saved have the image of God within them, even though they cannot commune with God before Jesus revives their spirits. Others, like Judah Iscariot and like some of the Pharisees who were enraged at Jesus' work and word, are in outward form human, and are convinced that they are human. In fact, they are correct: they are human and so there is a glimmer of God's image on them. But their souls are counterfeit. In a few cases they may even be soulless, but generally they have received souls of non-human life forms.

One doesn't need to have sex with an obvious demon for such an eventuality. When two people with human souls have sex in which somehow serious sin enters in, it is possible the baby will have a non-human soul. Other cases are when a predestined person mates with a non-predestined person. The result may or may not be a child with an inhuman inner core. But, I would say that if a predestined child is born to two non-predestined parents, then God is doing something special – as the Devil would never sanction such a happening.

As Jesus once said, "I'm telling you, when the end comes, there will be two men lying in bed. One will be taken, the other left. Two women will be mashing grain together. One will be taken, the other left. Two men will be working side by side. One will be taken, the other left" (Matthew 24:34-36).

Many people wonder why God permits evil to remain in the world. The answer is: he is compassionate. He wants to give everybody as much of a chance as he can to be saved. The other reason is that some people might be greatly disheartened if they realized too soon that their closest relatives were not made of the right material and were destined for annihilation.

Notice that Jesus gives no justification for genocide. It is up to the angels to pluck up Satan's spawn, not us.

In any case, we must beware using human logic to argue that, since we either must be saved or must be annihilated, there is no need to make a decision for Christ. What is impossible for humans is easy for God. And, to take such a position is the equivalent of testing God in an improper way. It would be like deciding to jump from a high window, on the assumption that God will catch you!

Consider the story in Genesis about "sons of God" mating with earth women. The result was terrible, Genesis tells us.

Genesis 6:1-5

After Adam's offspring began to proliferate, it happened that the sons of God noticed highly attractive earth women. So they took these good-looking girls as wives. Jehovah said, "My spirit won't always strive with humanity, for humans are also flesh. So, I will limit the human lifespan to 120 years."
In that time, their were giants roaming the earth and, after the sons of God mated with earth girls, the children became powerful people, who you still hear about today. God observed that human wickedness had spiraled out of control all over the earth, with people dreaming up wicked ideas and scheming evil all the time.

I unpack this passage this way:

The Genesis writer assumed that these "sons of God" were what were later called angels. But, I suggest, that the earlier, oral tradition meant by "sons of God," Adam's offspring who all had the image of God in them. That image is directly infused by God into a person. But then Adam's offspring saw the Stone Age paleo-Indians that had been on earth for many millennia and took them for mates. At that point, men with the image of God had children by women without that image, and the result was mayhem.

Many of the offspring were intellectually superior but controlled by purely animalistic drives. They also tended to be physically superior. These "giants" had the skills and the base drives to wage murderous wars on the paleo-Indians, which is why they got such an impressive reputation.

Genesis appears to imply (in English) that the giants were not the same as the offspring of the "sons of God." But by placing the two sorts of beings so close together, we can guess that the writer realized he was dealing with two traditions about the same thing.

Note that Genesis associates the shortening of the human lifespan to these matings. That is, the long-lived offspring of Adam had intermarried with the short-lived Paleo-Indians.

A related story is Cain's exile to the land of Nod (Genesis 4:1-17). Nod would be the territory of those humans who lack the full divine image – though we must concede that Cain's son Enoch found favor with God. Other of Cain's progeny were more problematic, however.

Of course, this whole scenario comes from educated guesswork and – even supposing it correct – that does not mean another interpretation of Gen. 6:1-5 isn't plausible.

Who are my brothers and mother? Notes

z1. Implicit here is the understanding that Jesus had reached the age at which he could make some decisions as a man without first consulting his earthly father or others. This age threshold evidently coincided with the onset of puberty, and may not have been a fixed at a particular number.
According to Jews for Jesus,

The bar/bat mitzvah is not found in the Bible. Bar mitzvah is of medieval origin, though the term itself is found in the Talmud, while bat mitzvah did not exist until the 20th century...
The bar mitzvah ... takes place at thirteen years of age, and the only mention of someone of that age in the Tanakh [Old Testament] is in Genesis 17:25:
And Ishmael his [Abraham’s] son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.

The web article continues,

The fact that the age of twelve is specifically noted may suggest that it was a transition age even in the first-century, though any evidence comes from the later period of the Talmud. At least, twelve could be considered an age when a young man evidenced wisdom and piety. Josephus (Antiquities X.4.1) says of King Amon:
And when he was twelve years old, he gave demonstrations of his religious and righteous behavior; for he brought the people to a sober way of living, and exhorted them to leave off the opinion they had of their idols, because they were not gods, but to worship their own God. And by repeating on the actions of his progenitors, he prudently corrected what they did wrong, like a very elderly man, and like one abundantly able to understand what was fit to be done …
Josephus likewise speaks of Samuel (Antiquities V.10.4):
Now when Samuel was twelve years old, he began to prophesy: and once when he was asleep, God called to him by his name …

R.E. Brown, in his The Birth of the Messiah, writes:

The general talmudic principle is that a child reaches manhood at the thirteenth birthday. Yet it was recognized that a child could understand the significance of the commandments and be bound by them before that, e.g., the age of making vows was sometimes set at twelve... The age of discrimination was thought to be between twelve and thirteen... We do not know whether in Jesus' time such later talmudic ideas were already applicable; but a fortiori the much later custom of the Bar Mitzvah was not. We do not know whether at age twelve Jesus would have been obliged to go to Jerusalem, and nothing in the story indicates that Luke thought of an obligation. It is an example of Jesus' exemplifying "Temple piety."

Twelve called: Notes

1a. Sons of thunder. The annals that have come down to us are sketchy about the careers of these apostles. Though John is traditionally thought to have written the books John and Revelation, there is no firm proof of those claims.
In any case, think of a very strong preacher, giving a rousing sermon from the pulpit. If he is Spirit-filled, he very likely is being very effective at proclaiming the Word in such a way that many hearers are moved. Such a preacher might be fairly described as a "son of thunder" and in fact the boanerges (Aramaic for sons of thunder) is often used to describe such a preacher.
In any case, these two apostles may have become effective preachers without having their words and deeds much recorded.

1. We may conjecture that Judah was the only apostle from Judaea.
Simon/Peter and his brother Andrew were from Bethsaida, on the northeast shore of Lake Galilee, as was Philip.
James and John were from North Galilee, probably Bethsaida.
Matthew worked in Capernaum.
Bartholomew very likely came from Bethsaida.
Of Thomas's home area we cannot be certain. His name is Semitic, meaning he might have been from anywhere Jews were settled. In the case of Simon and Andrew, their non-Semitic names suggest Jews residing where the Greek culture of the Gentiles was influential. (Simon could be Semitic, or Greek. But Andrew is assuredly Greek. To reinforce that point, we note that Philip is a Greek name. The scholar Raymond E. Brown identifies the Galilean Philip as a leader of the Hellenist (Greek) faction of the early church at Jerusalem, whereas the Galilean Peter was aligned with the more Jewish group.)
Of James, son of Alphaeus, we know little as to origin. Yet, Alphaeus is also the name of the father of the taxman, Levi, mentioned in Mark 2:14. So if Levi and Matthew are the same person and if there is one father named Alphaeus, that would make James a resident of Capernaum.
Of Simon's home area, we cannot say much. But we may observe that Judah's two rebellions occurred in Galilee, and the Zealot movement seems to have been an outgrowth of those rebellions.
The idea that Judas Iscariot means Judah of Kerioth in Judaea has plenty of support, but we have no absolute certainty.

2. That is, we have the twin, intertwined doctrines of remission of sin by Jesus and justification by faith, not works.

Devoted doctor: Notes

1. It is unlikely this healing took place in a synagogue, as some have thought. Lepers were not permitted inside. Further, the leper was required to stay at least six feet away from another person. Obviously, six feet is no impediment for someone who wished to bow low to Jesus.

2. Some mss. have "moved with anger." There has been much scholarly discussion of this point. My take is that this story was somehow mixed with another one in which Jesus looks around with anger at congregants because of their lack of compassion. (MK 3:5). Though Mark is our source of both stories, we may suppose that old ms. sources were shuffled.

2a. Another possibility is that, once on the roof, they lowered the man down into an unroofed courtyard, which was walled off and attached to the house. At night, it was customarily used for a barn. The courtyard opened onto the sheltered part of the residence.

3. Jesus referred to himself as "the son of man." This description could be taken to mean that he was just another man, as "son of man" was an idiom for "human." Or it might be taken to refer to the "son of man" in the book Daniel who looked human and who was appointed to deliver the Jews from oppression (the messiah). Even though we in retrospect know that Jesus is the son of God, he in his humility usually did not refer to himself that way. Some of his hearers, though concerned about blasphemy, did not see him as anything more than a man. His words might be interpreted by some to have meant, "In this case, a human can forgive sins."
Daniel 7:13

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

4. This tax collector is called Matthew in the book of Matthew. People have guessed that this difference from Mark implies that the author of Matthew was named Matthew. But, as Matthew adds no other detail to Mark's account, that supposition seems unlikely. It was not customary for ordinary people of that era to have more than one name. On the other hand, we have the name changes of Simon to Peter and Saul to Paul. The new names reflected their real status in God's eyes. A man named Levi (suggesting descent from the priestly tribe of Levi and meaning "attached') becomes a disciple. Might he not have adopted a new name, Matthew, which means "gift of Jehovah" or "God's gift"?

5.
Hosea 6:6

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

6. Abiathar seems to have been the high priest Ahimelech's son. But ancient scribes were not unanimous. 2 Samuel 8:17 has been read as "Ahimelech, son of Abiathar." In any case, the names are not all that important. What counts is the point that Jesus was making: The Sabbath was meant to give people a break, not to lay inhuman burdens on them. Further, if David, as God's servant, was right to break a rule about food, shouldn't another servant of God, Jesus, have that right? The Pharisees were well aware of Jesus' miracles and should have seen that he was a greater servant of God than was David.

7. The Old Testament Scripture is unclear on whether David was alone or had some men with him. Mark includes in Jesus' quote the clause "and those who were with him," which strikes me as an interpolation by the writer or an editor. We notice that Mark specifies that only the disciples were rolling grain and eating. I have to wonder whether the evangelist was averse to having Jesus break a Sabbath rule in a way that benefited himself directly. In any case, the point that Jesus was making is not about numbers but about God's compassion and care for his servants. After all, shouldn't God see to it that his men and women are fed?
1 Samuel 21:1-6

1 Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?
2 And David said unto Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee: and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place.
3 Now therefore what is under thine hand? give me five loaves of bread in mine hand, or what there is present.
4 And the priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread; if the young men have kept themselves at least from women.
5 And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel.
6 So the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there but the shewbread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.

8. The name Jehovah and the name Jesus are intimately intertwined.

Fish for people: Notes

1. Andrew is a form of the Greek name Andreia, which means "manly" or "brave." If Andrew had a Hebrew or Aramaic name, it is not now known.
Simon might be a Hellenized form of the Hebrew Shimon (which means "heard") or the Galilean may have been given the Greek name Simon ("pug-nosed"). Which derivation is correct is not known, but we might suspect the two brothers were given Greek names in an area that was under heavy gentile influence.

1a. Technically, Bethsaida was not in the Roman-supervised region of Galilee, which was ruled by Herod Antipas, but in the region of Lower Gaulanitis, which was part of the tetrarchy of Herod Philip II. Even so, as the town was apparently right on the Galilean border, this point is of little consequence.

2. James is derived from a Greek form of the Hebrew name Jacob ("Trickster").

3. John is derived from a Greek form of the Hebrew name Jonah ("Gift of God").

Secret Path
Notes and discussion