Re: It seems that after 400 years of silence from God that He sent them...

Israel practiced false religion....

FishRice · 2025-05-19T20:02:10.595Z

for multiple centuries & @ no point during that time did God change His mind & say; "You know what, they're wrong, but they're dedicated to it so I'll honor their false worship". There's a YUGE lesson in that for the apostate church system that loves to hide behind the ole trusty excuse of: "He knows my heart". He sure does... Jeremiah 17:9 King James Version 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

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Re: I don't bellieve the OP intended on painting Judaism as always having...

May 21, 2025, 7:48 PM [ in reply to Re: I don't bellieve the OP intended on painting Judaism as always having... ]

I. The first influence to me, is John's use of Logos, or the Word, in John. This is straight up Greek terminology, right from Aristotle himself.

There was an ancient idea that rationality, order, and reason, were what separated man from animals, and chaos, in general. Only man has wisdom, and he uses language, the Word, to express that wisdom. The things that makes our world different from all else we see.

And that idea goes right back to the Sumerians, whose myths include order, the world, being forged from chaos... the Deep. So the chaos-order idea goes way back. And the Jews interpreted that older idea as Wisdom. This is Wisdom herself... the ordering structure of the universe, telling us her role in her own words, in Proverbs:

Wisdom’s Call

8:1 Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?...“I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion.

23 I was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
24 When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
28 when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
29 when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
30 Then I was constantly[e] at his side.

So Wisdom goes way back. But Wisdom is not language...or speech...that's Greek...Logos. It's the Greeks who said "Yeah, wisdom exists, but it shows itself through speech, through words, through language."

And that's where John comes in. Because John makes a HUGE leap. Because for a centuries, Wisdom was a woman:

Proverbs 1:20
“Wisdom cries aloud in the street, SHE raises her voice in the public squares;

But John says, "No, Wisdom isn't woman, she's a MAN. And his name, wisdom as Word, as language, as a man, is JESUS.

John 1:1
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning

So what we've got here, scripturally, and culturally, is an ancient idea of Wisdom being the ordering force of the universe...why we're not trees, or cats, or dogs. That idea is translated from Sumer all the way to Judea. Then, it merges with the Greek idea that Wisdom doesn't just float around like a ghost. We express it, through our words. it becomes LOGOS, the Word. And that idea, in turn, gets carried by Alex and Friends to Judah.

And eventually, the WORD isn't just some nebulous cloud that was with God on Day Zero, it was Jesus himself.

So, without Greek influence, John may very well have seen Wisdom, the undefined female ghost that was with God on creation day, as Jesus. But the fact that he refers to Jesus as the Word, as language, and not just Lady Wisdom, is very, very Greek.

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III. The third idea is resurrection itself. Again, in the very oldest books of the Bible...the straight up Judaism stuff, I can't find it. You die, and you go to Sheol. Where you stay. Here's old scripture:

Ecclesiastes 9:5:
“The dead know nothing; they have no further reward…”

Psalm 6:5:
“For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?”

Job 7:9:
“As a cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up.”

But again, that idea changes. By way of the Greeks, who DID believe in limited resurrection for a special few...Orpheus, Dionysus, Asklepios, Heracles, etc.

But even more important than resurrection, the Greeks believed in an immortal soul that itself never dies, but could be judged, and might end up in Elysium if good, or Hades if bad. Just like Matt, and Luke, living under Greek influence for 300 years, tell us...

Matt 11:23
And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. (not Sheol, mind you)

Luke 16:23
In Hades, where he was in torment...(again, not the older, Jewish Sheol. Times have changed, you know)

There are other cases of influence I could show, but again, I don't know what's behind the curtain. I've only got 1 brain and 5 senses, and in my view, that ain't enough to figure it all out, by a longshot.

But what I DO find fascinating is what these guys thought, and how those ideas, to me, changed over time, and showed varying degrees of influence, from the Greeks, and the Sumerians, and the Egyptians, and even the Persians, by way of the Good/Bad, dualistic view of the world from Zoroastrianism.

Lot of incluences, from all over.

Israel practiced false religion....

Do you do drugs, Danny?***

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

Birds are not real.

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

Re: Israel practiced false religion....

It seems that after 400 years of silence from God that He sent them...