Hot answers tagged history
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Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 6, fourth mishna states:
MISHNA IV.: The stoning-place was two heights of a man. One of the witnesses pushed him on his thighs (that he should fall with the back to the surface), but if he fell face down, he had to be turned over. If he died from the effects of the first fall, nothing more was to be done. If not, the second ...
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The oldest discovered example of written Hebrew dates from about 3000 years ago -- although this dating is disputed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7700037.stm). Conversely, samples of Sumerian Cuneiform have been discovered from more than 5000 years ago. Granted, the language might have existed for quite a while prior to the development of a written ...
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This is the historical record regarding The Temple and the Samaritans from the Bible.
Moses instructed the Israelites that there should be only one place of worship.
Deuteronomy 12:8-11 (NIV)
You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit, since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God ...
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I believe your first option is the best but with a little modification. Moses originally had an Egyptian name that sounded almost exactly like a Hebrew name.
The pun involved in the name is elaborate and crosses languages. Names like Tutmose, Ramose, Amenmose are well attested from Egypt. The addition of -mose makes it "born of Amen," "child of Tut," or ...
6
Ehrman is a fascinating scholar, swinging radically between perspectives throughout his career. He's obviously quite intelligent and it also seems like he wholeheartedly throws his entire being into his research, which is why you can account for such radical opinions. They become a part of his very being.
The primary medium by which information was ...
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NT authors quoted works they considered authoritative, and works they did not. For example it would be a big leap from Titus 1:2 to claim that Paul regarded Epimenides as fully reliable:
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”ESV
Therefore we cannot tell by whether something is regarded ...
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One line of evidence is that all the names in the genealogies prior to Babel have meanings in Hebrew.
My first Hebrew professor, Dr. Robert L. Cate, did a lot of work in the development of the Hebrew language. For his doctoral dissertation, he constructed a hypothetical lexicon of proto-Hebrew, the Hebrew language as it existed before any written records. ...
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D. A. Carson's commentary on John (generally considered to be the best available commentary on this book of the Bible) explains the following: (See p. 220-222)
Different Canon...
The Samaritans limited the canon to the Pentateuch. As a result, they accepted Deuteronomy 12:5 as authoritative...
But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord ...
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Additional points to consider:
(1) Writing materials that could be preserved (e.g. sheepskin vellum) were expensive in ancient times. Furthermore, even if all 500 witnesses wrote their testimony (highly unlikely) the laborious effort required to hand make many copies would be made only for the most authoritative testimonies. Testimonies of which only a few ...
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Only one temple would be because God was teaching them that there was one way to worship Him, and it had to be done in the way He taught and in the place He taught. Of course, home worship and gatherings were encouraged, but there was one temple. It is similar to how, in the Tabernacle days, there was one entrance and the opening was to the east.
Also, ...
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According to the Majority Text footnotes1 cited in Mark, the word for dog that Jesus used was a diminutive form of the derogatory word dog Jews used for Gentiles who were considered to be unclean. Here the word (kynarion) means "little dog" (a house pet) or puppy, such as would beg food from children.
The kind of pesky, wild, loathsome dogs (probably like ...
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I've been unable to find other tower-construction myths that explain diverse languages. According to this article Hindu mythology includes a tree that reached to the heavens and itself grew haughty (the tree, not men), and as a result the tree was struck down and diverse languages and beliefs ensued. That's a similar theme in broad strokes, but very ...
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Abstract
Neither of these views captures what Jesus was doing by clearing the temple. Rather, Jesus was acting as (more than) a prophet, judging the temple system and enacting a symbol of its coming destruction.
Mark's Account
In Mark 11, the story is told as a sandwich story:
a. Jesus curses a fig tree.
b. The narrative is interupted as Jesus enters ...
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I doubt these are the same parable.
In John 10:1, it is written,
Amen, amen, I say to you, "He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
In v. 1, we find a reference to the "door" of the sheepfold.
In John 10:2, it is written,
"But who who enters by the door is the shepherd of ...
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Jesus spoke to people in a context, and that context is very important to understanding what He meant by that.
If you do a search for "ancient sheep pin" or something like that, you will find results like this:
As you can see, there is no swinging gate. The shepherd is the gate. Therefore, Jesus is identified by two elements in the same parable. He is ...
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It should be noted that the numbers given in the census at the beginning of Numbers are also disputed (which would affect the numbers available for Midian's army here).
The most probable solution at this point is to understand that the
numbers given here are mixtures. Since the Hebrew word translated
“thousand” (‘lp) looks the same as the word ...
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Dr. Meshulam Margaliot points out that Midrashic tradition is divided about what was written on which tablet. The options seem to be:
1–5 on one and 6–10 on the other. (This is the tradition interpretation that is most common in art and synagogue decoration.)
All 10 on each tablet.
Even numbered on one and odd on the other (as suggested by ...
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For context, the statements about the burial come in the middle of a speech given by Stephen during his trial before the Sanhedrin. Thus it is not the Book of Acts per se stating these things, so much as recording what Stephen said. That said, interpreters have tried to make sense of Stephen's apparent mistake here for as long as there have been ...
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Stephen's interpretation is called "telescoping," conflating two very similar accounts into one. Telescoping was not an unusual phenomenon in the Land at the time. (Bruce, FF. The Book of Acts: New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT), pg 137, note 35). The account says nothing about Luke (the author) except that he was very careful to allow ...
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Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls is done by a variety of methods. Obviously, any individual scroll can be no older than the youngest component used in that scroll. However, no scholar dates the majority of the scrolls in the second century. In fact, the vast majority of the scrolls, based on the methods below for both material and composition, date from the BC ...
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John’s extensive marriage theme begins with none other than the wedding of Cana and Jesus’ encounter with His own mother, the first woman to appear in the gospel.
When the "mother of Jesus" approaches him about the wedding’s lack of wine, she assumes and expects her son to assume a role that in Jewish custom is specifically reserved for the groom and or ...
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The name “Theophilus” may indicate a primarily Gentile audience, perhaps in Rome, given its decidedly Greek nature and that Luke’s account ends with Paul’s arrival in Rome. However, Theophilus could have just as easily been a diaspora Jew living in Rome. Heinz Joachim Held takes this perspective further by hypothesizing that Luke’s intent was to reach the ...
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One background commentary I have suggests that the size of the army is fairly substantial:
Here we discover that Abram has a household of significant size (318 recruits or retainers). The word used to describe these men occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, but does occur in an Akkadian letter of the fifteenth century B.C. Whether Abram is placed ...
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Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on the topic by any means. But, this answer agrees with all the scholarly opinions I've heard on the matter.
No particular pagan group is named in regards to these prayer practices. But, we can reasonably assume that, since none is named, many of the pagan groups in the area and time practiced similar forms of prayer. So, we ...
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The Nazirite vow was a means of extending the guarding role of the priesthood to an Israelite - either male or female - for the purpose of holy war. It was a sort of "priestly knighthood."
The vow is a miniature of Israel's sojourn in the wilderness - an emptying and a humbling followed by a filling and a glorification. The "Covenant head" is empty and ...
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(This answer is from a Christian perspective.)
Since this question deals with the significance of the imagery, it is helpful to look at other places in Scripture that use similar imagery.
1) 1 Kings 18:30-32 recounts a time when Elijah rebuilt one of these altars after it had been torn down:
Then Elijah said to all the people, “Now come to me.” So ...
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Probably not. The key is the parallel structure built into the verse:
You shall rise before the aged
and show deference to the old...
—Leviticus 19:32a (NJPS)
So the second statement is a parallel to the first. Therefore, whatever it means to "rise", it must be a sign of deference to the old.
The Hebrew word translated rise here is quwm ...
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Occam writes:
In Genesis 1:26, there aren't in fact three instances of "us". There is only one instance, "We will make", or "Let us make", followed by two possessives of the same number. The verse can be translated equally well as "Let us make mankind in our image and likeness" - with only two "us"s, as the Cambridge "New English Bible" translates. ...
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You are correct that according to Judaism God is indisputably one, not several beings in one (nor a member of a pantheon of gods). So what does the use of first-person plural mean? The predominant explanation is that God is addressing other (non-godly) beings, though some say God is speaking with himself (like one does when considering both sides of a ...
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