When you think about it, it’s pretty stark at how absent theonomy is in the NT
As I said, he never asked a person to murder their own family. He has used some nations to cast judgment on other nations and then sometimes cast judgment on those same nations. You are free to disagree with this recurring theme in the Bible that shows up cover to cover and on the lips of Jesus. I suspect most Christians who feel the Bible is inspired by God feel obliged to take it seriously as a reality of our world though.
Of course. God is sovereign. If He decides to cast judgment then that is that. Just as He is free to answer prayers, etc.
Vinnie
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I’d say that’s common. A lecturer I was listening to recently observed that modern Christians are so familiar with all the Bible stories that we lose sight of what is/was at stake, and just how hefty the stakes were, over and over, and thus misjudge situations. I see that as true in the case of the Israelites being commanded to wipe out a specific list of peoples: to us it seems arbitrary, but if we trace those peoples back it turns out that they either were or harbored offspring of the Nephilim or their later iterations such as the Anakim – creatures that were never meant to have existed because they were offspring of heavenly beings abandoning the posts God assigned them and the human women they had lusted after, and thus had a heritage the mere existence of which was open defiance to God. Once those stakes are known, the picture becomes clearer.
A more Eastern view rests on the meaning of the image of God which is a status of being His representative. In the royal aspect of that, we humans were handed kingly authority over Creation – and as He has never revoked that status, we still hold that authority; it has not been revoked, and God not only allows but insists that we be free to be either good images or bad images.
This ties in with Christ as the ultimate Image of God: we’ve been screwing up the job for millennia, and part of the task of Messiah was to reclaim that royal function for a humanity which will not screw it up – initially Himself, but eventually all of us (which BTW is why Paul notes that we will reign with Him!).
It should be noted that all the peoples God commanded the Israelites to wipe out were those with a heritage involving the Nephilim/Anakim, identified as descendants of the rebel heavenly beings who took human wives. From that perspective it was war against beings never meant to exist. In Jewish lore, the spirits of those Anakim were what became demons later on.
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Hello, and I found your comments interesting. Have you been reading Heiser? Some of your remarks equating (in some sense) the Canaanites with being descended from, or including, offspring of the Nephilim “or their basic iterations such as the Anakim” — sounds like some of Heiser’s (the late Michael Heiser) ideas. Found them interesting to say the least.
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You really are kidding!. Nephilim? Heavenly beings procreating on earth? What planet are you living on?
Throws Evolution off kilter a bit. Especially as not all of them were killed. So we have heavenly DNA in our gene pool? Give us a break!
Richard
Yes, among others.
He’s hardly alone. When h says “Mike never had an original thought in his life” he’s not really exaggerating; this stuff isn’t at all uncommon, it’s just that it took some people like Heiser who were determined to make the scholarship available to more than just the scholarly community for it to be out where laymen can find it.
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You should try taking scripture seriously for once.
Not in the least.
Whether that’s true is a topic that has been argued in a number of scholarly papers.
Not likely, unless you have Philistine ancestors – and even then likely not, since David and his "mighty men’ seem to have killed the last of them.
A break from scripture? I have to wonder why you so vehemently advocate we stop reading it!
BTW, I grabbed a random article about the Nephilim/Anakim/Rephaim and got a dcnt one –
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I never said anything about murdering one’s own family.
I meant that saying “Either God commanded this or not” is fundamentalist thinking; that is, seeing everything as black and white.
By ordering some other group to wipe them all out?
That’s nice; God is free to order a slaughter at any time, even now.
Like the woman taken in adultery? There are other places where Jesus tweaks the law.
I don’t know what to tell you. I answered your question as best as I can.
Edit: On second thought, my answer to your question was presuming you saw my previous comments about how the herem was an intrusion of end time ethics, and also about how we are now living in a period where that is strictly forbidden for the church to take part in.
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Thanks for the reminder,St Roymond. I did read *The Unseen Realm" a few years back and found it “challenging,” to say the least — especially since I have always wondered a bit about the scenario in Genesis 6:1-4, but never really focused on it and – once I read Heiser I had no idea what to do with his thoughts. I emailed some questions to him --back in 2018 when I was reading the book and before he took ill.
And then I dropped the subject. In his view, the elimination of the last vestiges of these Nephilim were the reasons for the conquest of Canaan— land that Israel eventually inherited–and that this interpretation was in the air (so to speak) during Second Temple Judaism but is hardly well known today. . .
That is as possible as anything. Maybe we can say there were multiple layers to this story And one layer includes conquest and (sorry) death , but another includes the reality that some descendants of this original group remained in the region and married into the conquering group(s) and (likely) took on the conquerors’ religion. One of them was Rahab, and her offspring became part of the line of the Messiah. Others of her compatriots experienced a different outcome. That, in essence, is the story of salvation–and of God’s mercy and blessing as well as His judgment–which may, in the end, be the point of it.
Thanks for the reference.
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Oh ,I do> But i don’t get distracted by useless details. There is absolutely no benefit in believing in Nephilim…
Perhaps you also believe that mental illness comes from evil spirit possession?
You clearly do not understand the purpose of Scripture. It is not about such details.
I will repeat. There is difference between study and obsession. You need to understand why you study so hard . Why you “need” to “Teach”, or “correct” or “admonish” and “be right”. If it is for self, or vanity, then it is wrong. I do not think your faith needs the information…
Richard
I was meditating on the Twenty-third Psalm and something struck me: why does it say “Your rod and staff comfort me”? Those are objects of might, and such objects can be frightening! But consider the progression:
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake;
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil
Walking through “the valley of the shadow of death” is not just random, it follows on being led in paths “for His name’s sake”. Since God is doing the leading, there’s no reason to fear; when one walks His paths His rod and staff are on your side.
All those other gods are rebels who abandoned their tasks of guiding the nations in order to indulge in fleshly pleasures – human pleasures – and so they taught the nations depravity. God locked up the first batch of those rebels in chains in darkness, but others took their places.
There’s a pattern to it: God gets more involved when the great acts of redemptive history are in progress. This includes to some extent the preservation of David’s line by preserving the kingdom(s) and then the people when He’s done with the kingdom period. One of my professors actually had made a chart showing instances of divine involvement through history and the peaks stood out.
And thus the highest peak of divine activity is centered on the Incarnation!
There was a lot more involved than that. If we compare and match scripture with Jewish lore, Canaan was sort of the headquarters of God’s enemies’ operations on Earth, and since a second Deluge wasn’t on the menu then annihilation was brought another way. Sacrificing children was just one manifestation of what those rebel ‘deities’ had wrought.
It should be noted that in some of those subcultures children weren’t considered people until they could talk; their perspectives and ours are wildly different.
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Or, as cited in a few passages in Isaiah (and a few elsewhere), the “gods” are simply fake.
Either God ordered the total annihilation or he didn’t. If he didn’t that does not indicate he did not order a partial eradication. Just that He did not order the total annihilation. If God did, we have to contend with that. As followers of Scripture we have to contend with the fact that God’s violent justice, along with his over abundance of mercy and grace, is found from cover to cover in Scripture and confirmed as a reality by our Lord and Savior. This latter point is something all those dismissing OT violence don’t seem to want to deal with. It absolutely is in the NT and on the lips of Jesus.
God Is God and if He actually casts that judgment I assume it was just and proper. The question is, did God do this? How do we understand this part of our sacred scripture. My point again is that:
As followers of Scripture we have to contend with the fact that God’s violent justice, along with his over abundance of mercy and grace, is found from cover to cover in Scripture and confirmed as a reality by our Lord and Savior. This latter point is something all those dismissing OT violence don’t seem to want to deal with. It absolutely is in the NT and on the lips of Jesus.
It’s like you just realized God is God.
Most will tell you this is not in the autographs but I accept it as canonical. There is a difference between a lynch mob trying to trap Jesus and God ordering the destruction of a nation if He did. You are correct that Jesus changed/disregarded the Law in parts but in others he intensified its commands. There is far more law observance than rejection. Jesus was a Jew. And there were laws no one seemed to follow like stoning disobedient children.
Jesus talks to demons in the gospels and performs a host of exorcisms. Truth is, I’d say the Gospels are mostly fiction if exorcisms are not real. If you feel this doesn’t undercut Christianity, that is your business. But we learn about Jesus from the gospels and if they are untrustworthy at describing Jesus, that leaves Christianity in a bit of a mess. If the Bible can’t get Jesus right I see no need to take any of it seriously. You can argue God still uses it to meditate the sacred and bring people to a relationship with him but that raises a whole host of problems.
I don’t think Christians think all mental illness is demonic but some of it may be if we take our gospel stories seriously. If we don’t Christianity can go in the trash with a bunch of other made up, fake religions. The incarnation an sacrificial death of Jesus can still be real but 99.99% of our doctrines and beliefs are done. Christianity would be a fake religion about a real savior who barely did any of the things claimed about him. I suppose we can take the tack that salvation is from the top down and these are just stories whereas the transforming and Risen Jesus who appears to us is the real thing. I’m guessing the Bible is just a human work to you through and through.
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LOL
you really do not get it.
The Bible is no more a medical journal than it is a physical or geological one.
Stop looking a the details!s!
It is not All or Nothing!
It is not all the same!
It is the impressions of the time. It is the knowledge of the time… It is the superstitions of the time. Jesus is not lying! He is just fitting in. He could no more talk about viruses and mental illness than He could talk about planets and star systems! It does not mean He believed it, or that it must be true. Scripture is not that detailed or precise.
Take what Sfriture is about instead of concentrating on side issues.
You just have no idea what i think or even know).
Inspired does not mean dictated. There is humanity in Scripture, but that dies not make it false or wrong. Contrary to what some people think humans can be inciteful and accurate about God and truth, and righteousness. But, just as Peter on the road to Emaus was right one second and wrong the next, so you have to understand which parts of Scripture are important and which are not. Peter identified Christ but failed to understand His mission and purpose or how it would be achieved. Do you hang on his words or Christ’s.? Iyou are savvy enough to know what is right there, why can’t you use the same brain cells elsewhere?
Scripture is Man’s (genderism excepted) understanding of God. It is not necessarily 100% accurate. You have to see both God and humanity in Scripture. They are identifiable (with the help of the Holy Spirit). If Scripture was as straight forward as you seem to think (or need) then we would not need the Holy Spirit at all.
Richard
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Of course not. I wrote a paper exposing that thinking.
Demonic possession is spiritual, not medical. I take Jesus to be an expert on that.
Of course, you can argue Jesus healed what people thought were demons at the time. But the accounts distinguish between demons and healings many times. Scripture seems to recognize a difference.
You say not to look at details but why? The details always disagree with you.
Mark 1: 12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness,13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted[g] by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
Matthew and Luke add details and a full blown dialogue with Satan.
Jesus speaks to a demon who knows his name in Mark 1:
21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24 “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” 25 “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26 The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
Its public and news spreads.
27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” 28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
Now Mark tells us he cure many diseases and drove out many demons (two different things) but the demons knew who Jesus was and he would not let them speak:
Mark 1:33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Jesus continues exorcism all throughout Galilee: ’
Mark 1:39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
Jesus continues healing many and silencing demons:
Mark 3:10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.
Jesus’s opponens accuse him of casting out demons by demons:
Mark 3: 22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
In Mark 5 Jesus has a full-blown conversation with a demon and he elects to let him go into some pigs.
Jesus gives his followers the power to heal fake demons and they drove out many demons
Mark 6:7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. Mark 6: 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them
Jesus meets a Gentile (Syrophoenecian) woman and refers to her as a dog and does not initially heal her daughter of an unclean spiritual.
Mark 7:29 Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”
In Mark 9 there is a very vivid and public scene where Jesus heals a boy his disciples could not. Inside they ask why they couldn’t cast out the demon. He says:
Mark 9: He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.
Jesus is all in on the deception of casting out fake demons or the Gospels are really creative here. And this is just Mark.
We must first recognize the reality of the demonic. The Bible is clear about this. All you have to do is read the gospel accounts of Christ’s numerous encounters with demons (e.g., Matt. 4:22, 24; 7:22; 8:16, 31; 9:33-34; 10:8; 12:24ff; 15:22; 17:18). Moreover, a cursory survey of these passages reveals that demon-possession is real. But on the other hand, these same passages inform us that Jesus not only cast out demons from those who were possessed, but that he healed “the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics” (Matt. 4:24). In other words, there were those with numerous afflictions, both spiritual and physical. Take for instance the fact that Matthew records that Christ healed epileptics but in addition healed those who were demon possessed. These were, according to Matthew’s account, two different classes of people in need of healing. By way of contrast, there were those who were demon-possessed who were gripped by epileptic-like seizures (e.g., Mark 9:18). This is to say, not all epileptics were demon-possessed and not all demon-possessed people were epileptics. The Scriptures appear to recognize the fact that some epileptics suffered from a medical condition (Matt. 4:24), while others suffered from a spiritual malady (i.e., demon possession, Matt. 17:14-18). This distinction has important pastoral implications. Link
This is black and white, all or nothing cartesian nonsense. Take your own medicine. Jesus does not need to correct thoughts on demon possession. He could just say, “it’s not a demon, the person is sick and heal them.” He doesn’t need to have fake conversations with fake demons who know his hometown or silence fake demons from revealing his identity. He doesn’t need to put on a deceptive show here. There are shades of gray. On purely historical grounds, the recurrent attestation is overwhelming that Jesus was seen as an exorcist. This is not very critical of you.
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No it s not. You are lumping all together and saying "it must have been demonic! every time!.
You are also claiming that what the Gospel writer recorded could be anything other than what he understood…
Pople did not beeive that anyone other than God could forgive sins. They also believed that people suffered because of thse sins, How else coud Jesus prove that He could forgive sins!
Job oproves that sins and suffering are not related. Do you think Jesus did nit know this?
So is Jesus lying? Or is he pandering to the only proofs that the people arid would understand and accept??
Use your brain!. Understand the dynamics of what Jesus was doing.
It is not just about “truth” (whatever that might be)
Richard
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A major part of the trouble is that even people who employ the term “worldview” don’t actually grasp what one is. The root of any worldview is its definition or understanding of truth, and unless a person has been exposed to multiple and very distinct worldviews it’s very hard to step back and let go of one’s own worldview – or even see it exists! A second foundational aspect of any worldview is the value placed on human life, something that varies wildly not just between the modern Western view and that of the ANE but between the modern West and many, perhaps most, other contemporary cultures.
Yet people judge Him by them all the time, here notably when the idea of animal death before the Fall is concerned.
Dragging God down to our level is common in cults; one of the most common arguments against more than one orthodox doctrine is to compare it to men – the JWs excel at this.
I’ve seen a good case made that the peoples targeted with that had fallen to a condition as wicked as the world before the Deluge.
As I read it, “endtime ethics” “intrude” in very situation where actual other gods – who are rebels who walked off their jobs of guiding the nations and instead sought their worship – or rather war against peoples who followed those gods were involved. Those rebel elohim stand in the way of Yahweh’s plan to introduce the Messiah and their followers have to be taken out.
This is why God doesn’t throw down judgment on nations any longer: Messiah has come and nothing can stand in the way of the Kingdom now that the plan to “lift [Him} up above the Earth” has been achieved – there can and will be delaying actions, but nothing will stop the King and family.
Brilliant illustration!
A kingdom had to be established and a Temple built, a diaspora had to happen, a new Temple had to be built, an empire had to unite the Mediterranean . . . and certain ideas had to develop.
It’s a bit of a clumsy verse, not easy to assemble coherently, but that gets the sense of it. Though “people” here is הָֽאָדָם֙ – our old friend “Adam” – which makes this an allusion to Genesis 2.
It’s an allusion to Genesis 2 where all fruit trees were given for food, so one aspect of this could be stated as “Don’t cut down what I gave to Adam”.
I don’t know that it was punishment; I’ve always thought of it as letting what was outmoded ‘die on the vine’. Jerusalem had been the seat of the king, but now a King had come Who needed no such seat; the Temple had been the realm of the priests, but now the Great Priest had come Whose temple wasn’t made of stone or wood; the leaders of the Jews had killed their last prophet, and no more would be coming.
I say you misunderstand the scripture and its purpose: the point of the entire Old Testament history was to prepare for – and make possible – the Incarnation. The “Nation” was never an end in itself, it was only a society “cooked” to provide the “ecology” for Messiah.
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Seriously? If God ordered you to participate in a violent slaughter would you do it? Or would you be willing to murder me if God ordered it? btw, what church do you go to and what do your pastors think about your ideas?
Yes, he has a friendly chat with a group of demon and caters to their request! How considerate.
It is true that many on this site are big fans of demon possession, even moderators. But what if these stories are real accounts of healing from mental illness, epilepsy, and so on? Belief in demons has hurt many people. The best way to not be possessed is to not believe in demon possession! In some countries with no mental health services people are still chained up in “prayer camps”
Depend on the circumstances, how certain I am and how much faith I have. The church we attend is a white evangelical one. The pastor gives a good sermon. The Catholic one before that felt like home for a while then just turned a bit. Still looking for the right one.
I cited a whole bunch of exorcisms in the Gospel of Mark. Dismiss them all if you want.
I doubt anyone is a fan. They raise questions of theodicy but Scripture is Scripture.
It’s probably actually easier to believe in demons possessing people Via their free will than to think God made a good world with “mental illness, epilepsy, and so on.” Pick your poison. But in the end it seems both are true.
People can take things too far or overreact but logic is logic. This has no bearing on the issue of Jesus being an exorcist in the synoptic Gospels. People falsely thought Jesus was possessed by a demon. It happens. Why the constant deflection from the issue at hand?
Thanks. My Bible has John 9:1-3. What does this have to do with anything?
No, I cited scripture which distinguishes between exorcisms and physical healings.
You can certainly claim the gospel writers got it wrong and made stuff up. That is a convenient debate tactic. They get wrong whatever isn’t palatable to you, but you can quote whatever you like that supports your case. You did this the other day. You are doing it now. Welcome to fundamentalism.
By just healing people without deception? By raising the dead, controlling nature, feeding miracles and hundreds of non-exorcism healings? Your whole defense is bankrupt. Jesus didn’t need to lie and deceive the people in healing non-existent demons. He could have just miraculously healed them.
Use your brain. Jesus can heal and perform supernatural miracles without any deception to the same effect. You have three options:
Jesus didn’t know any better and thought he was healing demons and the conversations are made up.
Jesus wasn’t an exorcist and all these scenes are made up by the gospel authors.
Jesus wanted to show he had power over demons to a society that believed in them by deceptively performing fake exorcisms and he supernaturally staged the fake conversations as well or the evangelists added them in.
Deception is not accommodation.
Vinnie
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