Dead Sea Scrolls are the Death Knell for Christian Orthodoxy

[SteveB]

Matthew 21:22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

Is the above true according to your assessent?

Yes.

 

[SteveB]

But it sounds like you already accepted God as real from the above.

My parents raised me in church.
As my experience has been that the "religious" people who "tried helping" me, gave up, because I was too much trouble, and my parents didn't actually live out their religious beliefs in ways that actually mattered, whatever I believed, it was not something that was practical.
I lived like the devil, and was taking the fast track towards self-destruction.
Several "friends" parents told their children to stay away from me, because I was trouble, with a Capital T.
So.... what it sounds like to you, is what you, in your biases and preconceptions, find to assuage your assumptions.
As such, I was out the door from church as soon as I was allowed by my parents. Which was 11-12 yrs.
By the time I was 13, I found it easier to hang out with bikers, and stoners, than people who were shy, religious types.
By the time I was 14, I was taking LSD, and within another year, smoking pcp.
This was the early to the mid-latter 70's.
It just gets worse from there.
So.... accepted God as a real being.... If that makes you feel safe, I suppose you'll have to live with a level of ignorance that I never found helpful.

Or is this not the case, you were an atheist/agnostic?

I was a stoner. I smoked pot, drank beer, took drugs, anything I could to numb the pain of living in a world which made it clear I did not belong to.
Roger Water's song--- Comfortably numb.... It described me quite well.
I remember in my freshman year of high school I met a guy who'd just come off a 1 year bender on LSD. He'd been so messed up mentally by the LSD that he didn't remember his name for a while.
I actually thought it was cool.

If so, this goes to my other question on how do I handle the other part of the conversation. You have me at the cusp of your experiment. I've read the bible tracts you gave (familiar with most of it anyway) and will read it again to keep it fresh for the experiment. But you need to answer how you handled God's side of the conversation if you were indeed an atheist or agnostic.

It's important.

Well.... you tell me.... just how do you think someone who wanted to hide from living in a world which made it clear he was not wanted, despised, and nothing more than garbage to its people would believe in God?
the God of the religious ideas I'd grew up around only wanted people who played by the rules, worked hard, were strong, and could handle anything.
I was trying to just get away from that, and the world I was living in.

Ever seen the movie--- Jeremiah Johnson, from 1974?
That was my goal-- get the hell out, and go live in the mountains, where nobody could affect/hurt/malign/injure me any more, ever again.

All I did was to ask God if he was real, if "this Jesus stuff I'm hearing is for real" or just another pile of religious bs.

I had no idea what would happen. For all I knew, the idea of God I had growing up was a joke, and it was all at my expense. I simply wanted out of civilization, and to go find someplace to get away to.

So.... when I said--- God answered--- it was quite profound. It was nothing of what I could've expected, because I no longer had any expectations.

So.... if you need to have any expectations of who/what God is, I think you're going about it all wrong.

I was dealing with 13+ years of pain, and heartache, and I wanted it to all be gone. My question was not asked to people--- I was in a room filled will people, whom I did not know. I did not want anyone knowing what I was asking, of who I was asking, because--- as so many atheists like to believe (falsely, but apparently it makes them feel all ooey/gooey inside), I was looking to prove some previously held beliefs.
I was just looking for someone to tell me God was real.
Which I was not.
I did not like religious beliefs.
I still don't like man's ideas of religion.
It's a construct that gives me that nauseous, I want to puke feeling.

I asked God.
My thinking was--- if I get nothing, then I go on with living the life I was preparing to choose.
But if God actually does answer, then..... some things were going to change, and I had no idea how.

God answered, and the past 43 years, 7+ months has been the changes.

So..... the best I can tell you is that what you read in the gospel of John, and Romans are who you're going to meet--- if you have the courage to do so-- and he's been worth every second.

 

[Tetsugaku]

So.... when I said--- God answered--- it was quite profound. It was nothing of what I could've expected, because I no longer had any expectations.

Readers will notice that Steve gives no detail at all on this part, which is of course the only part of his story that really matters.

 

[En Hakkore]

No, you have inserted ideas that are not there. I am fine with what Paul wrote and insert nothing in the text. Here is what Paul actually wrote without interruption.

God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,

I will get back to the issue of what I have allegedly inserted into the text momentarily. For now I will point out that your citation (noting that the beginning of v4 and the end of v6 have been chopped off) supports precisely what I asserted earlier... namely that the sending forth of the son is an entirely different action than the sending forth of the son's spirit --- the latter is contingent upon the action I have underlined in the citation. (1) God sends the son who is born a human under the law, (2) this son redeems those under the law so they can be adopted as sons, and (3) God sends the son's spirit into these adopted sons. The sequence is not difficult to follow and the author is clear... the pertinent point is that (1) and (3) are two distinct actions and in (1) the son, not anyone else, is born of a woman --- that is, Paul understands him to have been human.

Here is what you have inserted into the text (in red), --entire mythical stories of a dying/resurrected god-man accepted as true. You cannot let go of them even though Paul had no knowledge of them. His Christ was always revealed from scripture, rather than from a historical, solitary man who lived in his time and who Paul never describes, as you imagine. And reputable scholars have pointed this out.

God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
>> En Hakkore: Insert Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, then carry on from there.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,

I've inserted nothing from these documents (which were all written later than Paul), I've only read the text that the author wrote in context and understood his meaning that the son was human... I did appeal to texts from Israel's sacred writings, which were available to Paul, to show that the particular phrase 'born of woman' means being human, here expressed by the late Pauline scholar James D.G. Dunn: "He [Paul] mentions that Jesus was 'born of a woman' (Gal. 4.4), a typical Jewish circumlocution for a human person" (183). Your claim that this refers to other people rests on a faulty exegesis that I've picked apart here and in previous posts. As for "reputable scholars" who have pointed this out, I am aware of a small handful who have recently broken into peer-reviewed venues (cited earlier in this thread), but they remain vastly outnumbered and their position a minority one so you are not going to win this by merely mentioning their existence, you'll need to put forth some actual sound arguments; something you have thus far not done.

No, I am taking Paul's words as one thought. It is God who sent his Son [Holy Spirit into us] born of woman, born under the law because he explains it in the same breath as, "the Spirit of his [God's] Son into our hearts".

Here you are again (1) ignoring the intervening text that separates these actions and (2) inserting material (see your square bracket parenthesis 'Holy Spirit into us') in order to spin it to your liking. You here self refute your earlier claim that you are not doing this... it is plain for everyone here to see that you are doing it and thus distorting the author's intended meaning.

Then YOUR Jesus is NOT the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus of the Gospels walked on water and reassembled his rotting corpse into a functioning body.

Jesus is not mine or yours and anyone else's to have... he was, according to the overwhelming number of historians, a Jewish man who lived in the early first century and was executed by the governing authorities in Judea. The gospels are sources for reconstructing the life of this individual with varying levels of probability attached to particular events... historians evaluate their sources, they do not naively embrace or reject them wholesale --- I recommend you approach the gospels with a higher level of methodological sophistication than you are presently displaying, perhaps then you'll see the problem with a number of your claims about them.

The Gospels are allegory about Paul being a "light to the Gentiles".

The gospels contain some allegorical stories (the so-called 'parables' of the sower and wicked tenants, for example), but are not themselves allegories... they are, rather, adaptations of the bios genre, telling about the life of a renowned figure (ie. Jesus). While Mark and Luke are written within Pauline communities, John's relationship to Paul is more obscure; Matthew clearly views Paul as an apostate and writes to counter his heretical law-free gospel.

Reason. The DSC were written up to two hundred years BEFORE the New Testament was written. Do you think the former Temple priests would not have told anyone outside their community about what they believe? Who is not being reasonable now? They had ample time to initiate many followers who presumably travel around sharing what they learned. I am sure they could have made some ground over a hundred years or more to include reaching Rome, before Paul wrote his letter to them (the diaspora in Rome). Don't you think?

No, I don't think so. Accepting the identification of the Qumran community as being Essenes, the group as a whole originated within Judea sometime in the second century BCE and spread no further than the small sectarian communities scattered throughout the land (Collins 124-56) --- the idea that a Jewish sect so hostile to those outside its community would send missionaries to the far reaches of the Roman Empire is, from a sociological perspective, an absurd hypothesis and, indeed, there is no evidence whatsoever for this having occurred. Furthermore, your understanding of the origins of this group as a splinter from the temple elite is dated... the idea has been cogently challenged by a model based on the more primitive Damascus Document and 4QMMT (which was not published until the eighties) that general disputes over interpretation of the law and calendar were the causes of the schism and that conflict with the priestly establishment as reflected in the pesharim date instead to the first century BCE (Collins 78-79, 96-97, 111-13, 120-21).

I addressed the essence of your question: How can the Son of God be born of woman?, and provided references that you ignore. Your stubbornness is duly noted.

Don't confuse arguing from a position of scholarly strength and acumen for stubbornness. Also, you have still offered no detailed response to the son being descended from David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3) and the parallel to this in 2 Tim 2:8.

Kind regards,
Jonathan


Works cited:
Collins, John J. Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Eerdmans, 2010)
Dunn, James D.G. The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Eerdmans, 1998)

 

[Vladimir]

Yes

Thanks for clarifying that your assessment is very biased in favor of Christianity. Have you noticed how Christians don't typically ask God to heal amputees?

 

[docphin5]

I will get back to the issue of what I have allegedly inserted into the text momentarily. For now I will point out that your citation (noting that the beginning of v4 and the end of v6 have been chopped off) supports precisely what I asserted earlier... namely that the sending forth of the son is an entirely different action than the sending forth of the son's spirit --- the latter is contingent upon the action I have underlined in the citation. (1) God sends the son who is born a human under the law, (2) this son redeems those under the law so they can be adopted as sons, and (3) God sends the son's spirit into these adopted sons. The sequence is not difficult to follow and the author is clear... the pertinent point is that (1) and (3) are two distinct actions and in (1) the son, not anyone else, is born of a woman --- that is, Paul understands him to have been human.

<Facepalm> Of course the Son, "born of woman", is human. I have never said otherwise. Where we disagree is that you think it is a solitary person whereas I have said that the Son, "born of woman", includes EACH of us. You missed the point so badly that I had to go back and review what I said to be sure I had not misled you. I didn't, here are the posts for your convenience.

POST #85

Read Galatians 4:4 again in the context and he is describing how the "Yeshua" is working through US who are "born of woman".

(Galatians 4)
(3) "In the same way we also, when WE were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
(4) But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son [Holy Spirit], BORN OF WOMAN, born under the law,
(5) to redeem those who were under the law, so that WE might receive adoption as sons.
(6) And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”"

But what is the spirit of flesh that it might understand all these things and obtain insight into the council of your great [wonders?]. And what is one BORN OF WOMAN among all [your] awesome [works?]. He is but an edifice of dust, kneaded with water, [...] Only by your goodness shall a man be justified, and by the abundance of your compassion

POST #89

Right after writing the statement's above, Paul goes into a lengthy exposition and interpretation of the Law (one of the "secrets" of the Qumran community) about the two Sons born of two WOMEN. One Son is born of flesh or from earthly "mother" and the other son is born of spirit or heavenly "mother".

(YLT: Galatians 4:21)
for it hath been written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the maid-servant (WOMAN #1), and one by the free-woman (WOMAN #2), but he who [is] of the maid-servant (WOMAN #1), according to flesh hath been, and he who [is] of the free-woman (WOMAN #2), through the promise;
which things are allegorized [the hidden divine patterns within the Law],
And we, brethren, as Isaac, are children of promise,

POST #101

I wanted to point out that your statement supports my position that one(s) "born of woman" is US because we are in fact, HUMAN and that the Holy Spirit indwells us.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but let me just add one detail that we have not already discussed. It is verse 7, "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." Notice, that in talking to his disciples, that he calls each of them, "a Son" of God and explains how each of them transitioned from being under the law to being indwelled by the Spirit. Notice, he did not insert, as you have, four Gospel stories. Instead, the transition happened in EACH of them. Then review post #89 where again Paul likens us as one Son, when he says, "WE, brethren, as "Isaac", are children of promise". According to the type that Paul is expounding on, prior to US becoming Isaac, "through the promise", we were Ishmael, "he who [born of woman #1], ACCORDING TO THE FLESH". First comes the flesh, aka the "Son, born of woman", then comes the Spirit of the Son as promised by God, --IN EACH OF US! (who live virtuous lives and believe in the Good God).

Your blind spot is that you keep expecting to find a single, solitary Jesus as represented in the Gospels, when Jesus of the Gospels is actually allegory, myth, and superstition representing the cosmic Christ. Apparently, you don't know the divine, hidden meaning of the Law which reveals the MYSTERY of Christ to be "in all things". You must remove the Gospels as historical stories OUT OF YOUR MIND, or you will never see it as Paul and the ToR saw it and you will keep mentally inserting text (Gospel stories) into the epistles that is not there. Paul NEVER describes a solitary, historical Jesus of Nazareth, NEVER! To Paul, ToR, et. al., "Yeshua" is salvation/is the "face" of the Holy Spirit=Ruach Elohim/is the manifestation of Virtues inside us (and the cosmos), --who, each of us belongs to, and is born of woman! Each of us transitions from being born of woman to being born of Spirit if we live virtuous life and believe in the Good God Most High.

"Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test." (2 Corinthians 13:5)

" making known to us [Paul, ToR, et al] the MYSTERY of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." (Ephesians 1:10)

"For all who attack me [Teacher of Righteousness] you will condemn to judgment, so that IN ME you might divide between the righteous and the ungodly...And you have appointed me as a Father to the children of mercy and a guardian to men of portent...I shine forth in sevenfold light." (Thanksgiving Hymns, #20)

 

[5wize]

My parents raised me in church.
As my experience has been that the "religious" people who "tried helping" me, gave up, because I was too much trouble, and my parents didn't actually live out their religious beliefs in ways that actually mattered, whatever I believed, it was not something that was practical.
I lived like the devil, and was taking the fast track towards self-destruction.
Several "friends" parents told their children to stay away from me, because I was trouble, with a Capital T.
So.... what it sounds like to you, is what you, in your biases and preconceptions, find to assuage your assumptions.
As such, I was out the door from church as soon as I was allowed by my parents. Which was 11-12 yrs.
By the time I was 13, I found it easier to hang out with bikers, and stoners, than people who were shy, religious types.
By the time I was 14, I was taking LSD, and within another year, smoking pcp.
This was the early to the mid-latter 70's.
It just gets worse from there.
So.... accepted God as a real being.... If that makes you feel safe, I suppose you'll have to live with a level of ignorance that I never found helpful.


I was a stoner. I smoked pot, drank beer, took drugs, anything I could to numb the pain of living in a world which made it clear I did not belong to.
Roger Water's song--- Comfortably numb.... It described me quite well.
I remember in my freshman year of high school I met a guy who'd just come off a 1 year bender on LSD. He'd been so messed up mentally by the LSD that he didn't remember his name for a while.
I actually thought it was cool.



Well.... you tell me.... just how do you think someone who wanted to hide from living in a world which made it clear he was not wanted, despised, and nothing more than garbage to its people would believe in God?
the God of the religious ideas I'd grew up around only wanted people who played by the rules, worked hard, were strong, and could handle anything.
I was trying to just get away from that, and the world I was living in.

Ever seen the movie--- Jeremiah Johnson, from 1974?
That was my goal-- get the hell out, and go live in the mountains, where nobody could affect/hurt/malign/injure me any more, ever again.

Here may be the rub... we'll see. I am not as predisposed as you were to escape the pain of the world. People tend to be more prone to accept psychological relief in any form to fill, or carry one away from, such a void as you describe.

Had my share of the bad the world offers but I am not in the state of abandonment that you were in. Don't know if I'll be as pliable as a result.

All I did was to ask God if he was real, if "this Jesus stuff I'm hearing is for real" or just another pile of religious bs.

O.K. This tells me you didn't know whether God was real. That's a match.

I had no idea what would happen. For all I knew, the idea of God I had growing up was a joke, and it was all at my expense. I simply wanted out of civilization, and to go find someplace to get away to.

So.... when I said--- God answered--- it was quite profound. It was nothing of what I could've expected, because I no longer had any expectations.

You need to describe this better. It was a real experience for you so you can offer the emotional details and thoughts and mental state changes. This would go a long way for me to start identifying emotional or intellectual "movement" happening that I should recognize and explore.

So.... if you need to have any expectations of who/what God is, I think you're going about it all wrong.

I'm an atheist. I think you can confidently check the box "No Expectations" on my part. That's a match.

I was dealing with 13+ years of pain, and heartache, and I wanted it to all be gone. My question was not asked to people--- I was in a room filled will people, whom I did not know. I did not want anyone knowing what I was asking, of who I was asking, because--- as so many atheists like to believe (falsely, but apparently it makes them feel all ooey/gooey inside), I was looking to prove some previously held beliefs.
I was just looking for someone to tell me God was real.
Which I was not.
I did not like religious beliefs.
I still don't like man's ideas of religion.
It's a construct that gives me that nauseous, I want to puke feeling.

I asked God.
My thinking was--- if I get nothing, then I go on with living the life I was preparing to choose.
But if God actually does answer, then..... some things were going to change, and I had no idea how.

God answered, and the past 43 years, 7+ months has been the changes.

So..... the best I can tell you is that what you read in the gospel of John, and Romans are who you're going to meet--- if you have the courage to do so-- and he's been worth every second.

O.K. Other than the personal mental angst you describe, and the need for any experience other than what you were going through, which is unfortunately a big bucket of bias towards accepting any mode of relief the world offers, I can perform this experiment.

 

[En Hakkore]

<Facepalm> Of course the Son, "born of woman", is human. I have never said otherwise. Where we disagree is that you think it is a solitary person whereas I have said that the Son, "born of woman", includes EACH of us. You missed the point so badly that I had to go back and review what I said to be sure I had not misled you. I didn't, here are the posts for your convenience.

I understand your position -- as far as you've articulated it -- just fine and refuted it; your latest post is just one big sidestep. I asked you early on in our conversation to clarify your views on the nature of Jesus and you answered here that he is equivalent to the divine spirit that indwells humans and that you reject the existence of an historical Jesus. Contrary to what might be implied from your latest comments above, you do not view the divine son as having ever been human himself along with each of us, but rather that we, ostensibly possessing some essence of his spirit, are human. That is not what Paul is saying as I have painstakingly shown along with challenging your understanding of both the gospels as allegories and the nature of the Qumran community itself. You have offered nothing here to rebut the points I've raised and continue to ignore my repeated request for you to deal with references to Jesus' descent from David in Romans and 2 Timothy.

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[docphin5]

I understand your position -- as far as you've articulated it -- just fine and refuted it; your latest post is just one big sidestep. I asked you early on in our conversation to clarify your views on the nature of Jesus and you answered here that he is equivalent to the divine spirit that indwells humans and that you reject the existence of an historical Jesus. Contrary to what might be implied from your latest comments above, you do not view the divine son as having ever been human himself along with each of us, but rather that we, ostensibly possessing some essence of his spirit, are human.

Not true, I did mention it in the OP (see below). The flesh of man and matter belongs to the angel of darkness whereas the virtues inside us belong to the spirit of truth. It is the basis of their dualistic system of belief which Paul is building upon in his letter to the Galatians. Both the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls talk about it frequently.
POST #1

Check this out! (A New Translation The Dead Sea Scrolls, Wise, Abegg, and Cook, page 120-123) The scrolls describe how the world is governed by two spirits until the final judgment when the good spirit leads the righteous to the Good God Most High. One spirit is found in the flesh of man and the other is essentially the virtues (ie. truth, love, patience, etc.) in man.

Then I say it again later (see below) where I use the Parable of the Prodigal Son as an analogy of the Son who departed his Father, squandered his birthright, before having a change of disposition, and returning home to him. It is a parable about the life of the cosmos which has two spirits competing for every soul, one associated with flesh and the other with virtues. (Matter is considered a lower form of spirit by some ancient cultures.)

It ties in to the dualistic system of belief regarding our origins and the origins of the cosmos, for from the flesh come the inordinate desires, passions, fits of anger, jealousy, error, etc. (aka the works of Be-lial or Satan) which is condemned by the Law and results in death, but if we instead choose to live virtuous lives then the presence of the Most High God, as his own Son, the Holy Spirit, in each of us, rescues us from condemnation and death. That ties in nicely with what Paul has written to the Galatians, that is, EACH of us transitions from being cursed by the Law for living according to the flesh, TO being rescued by the Most High God when he sends the Spirt of his Son into our hearts. Again, notice how I can make sense of Paul's meaning without inserting any (mythical) historical, solitary, Jesus of the Gospels into it.
POST #89

To make a long story short, the substance begotten alone (i.e. matter) and lifeless produced us 13.8 billion years later ("the Logos became flesh"). We being members of the Son "born of woman" can be reunited to our syzygy, that is, the Father's Wisdom/Holy Spirit, and return to the heavenly family, belonging to the Supreme Good God. IOW the two principles sent by the Supreme God, that separated, are reunited in us, forming a union, a syzygy, as one Son, born of woman, returning us home to the Supreme Good God. We hope in the resurrection when the Son's cosmic body is made perfect again so that we may receive eternal life.

"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all." (John 6:63)

"For in the filth of my flesh is the foundation of [...and in] my body are conflicts. The statutes of God are IN my heart" (4Q510 Frag. 48,49,51) repeated about 100 times.

That is not what Paul is saying as I have painstakingly shown along with challenging your understanding of both the gospels as allegories and the nature of the Qumran community itself. You have offered nothing here to rebut the points I've raised and continue to ignore my repeated request for you to deal with references to Jesus' descent from David in Romans and 2 Timothy.

You have been soundly rebutted, you just don't know it yet. Sadly, you still think the Gospels are historical narratives when they are nothing of the kind. They are allegory about the Cosmic Christ indwelling the apostle Paul. When the authors wrote the Gospels they were using a literary technique to convey a sublime message about who we actually are, where we came from, and where we are going: the past, present, and future.

 

[En Hakkore]

You have been soundly rebutted, you just don't know it yet. Sadly, you still think the Gospels are historical narratives when they are nothing of the kind. They are allegory about the Cosmic Christ indwelling the apostle Paul.

They are nothing of the sort and one of them, as I already noted, is even anti-Pauline (ie. Matthew). You are more or less just rambling in your posts now instead of responding to the specific points that I have raised. Unless you have something on topic to say in response to my post here, I'll be chiming out. You are welcome to your imagined refutation of my position, but I doubt you'll find many (any?) posters here sharing that evaluation...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[docphin5]

They are nothing of the sort and one of them, as I already noted, is even anti-Pauline (ie. Matthew). You are more or less just rambling in your posts now instead of responding to the specific points that I have raised. Unless you have something on topic to say in response to my post here, I'll be chiming out. You are welcome to your imagined refutation of my position, but I doubt you'll find many (any?) posters here sharing that evaluation...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

I have responded to every point you have brought up and provided references and quotes from both the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Just cause it doesn't fit with what you want it to say, you give up. That is fine. Thanks for the discussion anyway.

 

[docphin5]

They are nothing of the sort and one of them, as I already noted, is even anti-Pauline (ie. Matthew).

One thing I have learned reading the Dead Sea Scrolls is that the Essenes defended the Law NOT for the letter but because it contained a hidden, divine, pattern. They were actually opposed to the Pharisees for introducing oral traditions that supplemented the Law, even superseded it. Even Paul taught from the Law all the time by allegorizing its meaning. So there is no anti-Pauline effort in the Gospel of Matthew because "every jot and tittle" of the Law reveals the hidden, divine plan from beginning to end. You really don't appreciate how the Essenes, to include Paul, understood and valued scripture.

"If he be ordained, ...then he shall be initiated further into the SECRET teaching of the Yahad... Every initiate into the party of the Yahad is to take upon himself a binding oath to return to the Law of Moses with all his heart and will all his MIND, to all that has been REVEALED from the Law according to the party of the men of the Yahad." (4Q255-264a col. 9)

"Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the MYSTERY that was kept SECRET for long ages but has now been disclosed (OR REVEALED) and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations," (Romans 16:25)

 

[5wize]

One thing I have learned reading the Dead Sea Scrolls is that the Essenes defended the Law NOT for the letter but because it contained a hidden, divine, pattern. They were actually opposed to the Pharisees for introducing oral traditions that supplemented the Law, even superseded it. Even Paul taught from the Law all the time by allegorizing its meaning. So there is no anti-Pauline effort in the Gospel of Matthew because "every jot and tittle" of the Law reveals the hidden, divine plan from beginning to end. You really don't appreciate how the Essenes, to include Paul, understood and valued scripture.

"If he be ordained, ...then he shall be initiated further into the SECRET teaching of the Yahad... Every initiate into the party of the Yahad is to take upon himself a binding oath to return to the Law of Moses with all his heart and will all his MIND, to all that has been REVEALED from the Law according to the party of the men of the Yahad." (4Q255-264a col. 9)

"Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the MYSTERY that was kept SECRET for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations," (Romans 16:25)

But it's not going to help anybody, even if it's all true. Lives are lived as they are lived outside any knowledge of this, and I don't see this spreading as a practical life path.

 

[docphin5]

But it's not going to help anybody.

That remains to be seen. You might be surprised or this might just be the beginning of a process that will evolve over the next hundred years or so. Christianity grew from a small group of sectarian Jews holed up in the caves of Qumran to become a world religion. By finding the Dead Sea Scrolls we have an opportunity to study the original teachings of the founders and hopefully restore it to its original meaning. After all, the promise to Abraham was to all nations, not just the nation Israel. That essentially was the mission of Paul to be a "light to the Gentiles". Think how many nations his letters can be found. IMO, that is a "sign that He is unlocking eternal loving kindness each time these cycles begin as ordained, and so it shall be for every era yet to come." (5Q11)

 

[5wize]

That remains to be seen. You might be surprised or this might just be the beginning of a process that will evolve over the next hundred years or so. Christianity grew from a small group of sectarian Jews holed up in the caves of Qumran to become a world religion. By finding the Dead Sea Scrolls we have an opportunity to study the original teachings of the founders and hopefully restore it to its original meaning. After all, the promise to Abraham was to all nations, not just the nation Israel. That essentially was the mission of Paul to be a "light to the Gentiles". Think how many nations his letters can be found. IMO, that is a "sign".

But they were found years ago and you are the ONLY proponent of the doctrine I am aware of. The trend is away from orthodox, but that trend is not towards a more supernatural and esoteric and inaccessible philosophy. It's even farther than that. Even if we all knew this, how does it change how we live? What would I change? What did you change?

 

[docphin5]

But they were found years ago and you are the ONLY proponent of the doctrine I am aware of. The trend is away from orthodox, but that trend is not towards a more supernatural and esoteric and inaccessible philosophy. It's even farther than that. Even if we all knew this, how does it change how we live? What would I change? What did you change?

There is a very practical answer to your question but it is not a pleasant topic. Assume that they are right, and that there will come an apocalyptic end to life on this planet at a time that the Good God has foreknown. He would want those facing that time to have courage and hope despite what it may look like. Every month or so I see a news article about some meteor passing by our planet and just a few months ago the head of NASA said the greatest threat facing our planet is an asteroid. I hope it doesn't happen for another 60 million years but according to scientists it will happen. If it does, then those who trust in God should not lose faith because he has already told them about it and has a plan to rescue them when he makes "all things" new. There is a divine plan to save those Good like himself. Everyone else will be without hope on that day.

 

[5wize]

There is a very practical answer to your question but it is not a pleasant topic. Assume that they are right, and that there will come an apocalyptic end to life on this planet at a time that the Good God has foreknown. He would want those facing that time to have courage and hope despite what it may look like. Every month or so I see a news article about some meteor passing by our planet and just a few months ago the head of NASA said the greatest threat facing our planet is an asteroid. I hope it doesn't happen for another 60 million years but according to scientists it will happen. If it does, then those who trust in God should not lose faith because he has already told them about it and has a plan to rescue them when he makes "all things" new. There is a divine plan to save those Good like himself. Everyone else will be without hope on that day.

But how does the knowledge affect you and I? What did you change? What should I change?

 

[docphin5]

But how does the knowledge affect you and I? What did you change? What should I change?

I don’t change anything if I trust God completely. Keep living. Keep planning for our lives and families, continue to live a life worthy of God, help others, but if that terrible day comes then we should not lose hope or be discouraged because of what comes after. According to scripture, everything is made new and the sons of God receive their inheritance, that is, eternal life. IMO, that would be when the cosmic “body“ of Christ returns to a perfect singularity (i.e., actual “resurrection”) sufficient for intelligent life to exist. Then the end shall be as the beginning.

For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. (1 Thessalonians 5:2)

What are trying to tell us, Paul?

“So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,”

 

[5wize]

I don’t change anything if I trust God completely. Keep living. Keep planning for our lives and families, continue to live a life worthy of God, help others, but if that terrible day comes then we should not lose hope or be discouraged because of what comes after. According to scripture, everything is made new and the sons of God receive their inheritance, that is, eternal life. IMO, that would be when the cosmic “body“ of Christ returns to a perfect singularity (i.e., actual “resurrection”) sufficient for intelligent life to exist. Then the end shall be as the beginning.

For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. (1 Thessalonians 5:2)

What are trying to tell us, Paul?

“So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,”

But you are aware that that apologetic was a late Jewish BCE fabrication devised to offer some explanation as to why the world rewarded the wicked and punished the righteous. Up until that time the Jews thought there was no afterlife, the world was under God's control, and they had sinned to have such tragedy put upon them. After following the advice of the prophets, and God still not responding, they resorted to a new apologetic to make sense of it all. It's no more true than the story of the physical Jesus. It was just an ancient superstitious attempt at an explanation, a very fringe and unpopular one I might add, for their state of affairs

Then when the prophesy of the physical messiah fell through... yet another great disappointment heaped on top, then Paul comes up with yet another change to the story that had "some" tint of the Gnostic tradition, as Paul was a populist and included as much contemporary philosophy as could be found in the Hellenized world, but not a full scale esoteric adoption of a single fringe narrative.

 

[docphin5]

But you are aware that that apologetic was a late Jewish BCE fabrication devised to offer some explanation as to why the world rewarded the wicked and punished the righteous. Up until that time the Jews thought there was no afterlife, the world was under God's control, and they had sinned to have such tragedy put upon them. After following the advice of the prophets, and God still not responding, they resorted to a new apologetic to make sense of it all. It's no more true than the story of the physical Jesus. It was just an ancient superstitious attempt at an explanation, a very fringe and unpopular one I might add, for their state of affairs

Then when the prophesy of the physical messiah fell through... yet another great disappointment heaped on top, then Paul comes up with yet another change to the story that had "some" tint of the Gnostic tradition, as Paul was a populist and included as much contemporary philosophy as could be found in the Hellenized world, but not a full scale esoteric adoption of a single fringe narrative.

I think you are just making stuff up now. If you want to make stuff up to support your bias that everyone involved in religion is a populist, charlatan, or whatever, then I am not going to spin my wheels trying to persuade you otherwise. Although, I think you are better than that. As a point of information, to refute your assertion that "the Jews thought there was no afterlife", there is this from Wikipedia on "Sheol":
"Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the dead went after the body died."

Although I have no intention of debating the motives of Paul with you. What I can do and have already done is demonstrate that he carried on the method of interpreting scripture from the Essenes up to two hundred years earlier. Moreover, the Essenes were only taking their cue from the prophets themselves who wrote several hundred years earlier.

Look at what the prophet Ezekiel wrote around 600 B.C. He describes a "cherubim" "in Eden" who was "blameless" from the day he was created till "unrighteousness" was found in him. Pay close attention: the cherubim was destroyed because he "corrupted" his " WISDOM" and was consumed by fire, "turned to ashes", and "cast" to the ground (earth, matter, flesh), in the sight of all who saw him. (Ezekiel 28:12-19).

It is clear that Ezekiel is describing a metaphysical connection between heaven and earth resulting from the transgression of a fallen cherub. Where else did the Essenes get their Angel of Darkness, the principle holding dominion over the material world or flesh, except from their own prophets?

It goes back further than that because the Hebrew prophets assimilated some wisdom literature from the Egyptians who came before the Hebrews. I know that in you mind this is only one long chain of charlatans trying to deceive everyone else. OR it could be a common thread of truth running through all great religions that won't die, because IT IS TRUE! Wisdom seekers, sages, mystics, prophets, and apostles, have perceived the truth underlying our world and ourselves and feel compelled to share it with others as a message of hope and plan of salvation. There are some theists who see a fundamental order to the cosmos and who tried to explain it as best they could before Hubble telescopes, astrophysics, molecular biology, etc., came along. And if I was the Good God Most High I would not let a later generation puffed up with knowledge forget those who loved Wisdom long before modern science came to be. You want answers, look to your ancestors!