When/what is the End of Days?

[Secret Alias]

The MMT passage above also mentions Belial (as do other DSS), and Paul does too in 2 Cor. 6:15 (the only time it occurs in the NT)

Wow, there is a slam dunk, I tell you.

[John2]

To get back to the subject of the End of Days, like in Daniel 9, MMT associates it with the blessings and curses in the Torah.

And we recognize that some of the blessings and curses have come, those written in the Bo[ok of Moses; therefore this is the End of Days, when (those) in Isra[e]l are to return to the La[w of God with all their heart,] never to turn bac[k] (again) ... Remember the kings of Israe[l], and understand their works. Whoever of them feared [the L]aw was saved from sufferings; when they so[ug]ht the Law, their sins [were forgiven] them.

This is the way Nehemia Gordon also sees it in his article on the End of Days (which I think is worth putting up again here):

Although the exact year of the End of Days can not be learned from the Book of Daniel, there is no secret in the Hebrew Bible about when the End of Days will take place. In fact, the timing of the End of Days is spelled out explicitly in the Torah. In Dt 28-30 God lays down the terms of his covenant with Israel: If Israel keeps the covenant they will be blessed with abundance and peace but if they violate the covenant they will be harshly punished with a curse. In Dt 29:25-27 the people of Israel are warned that if they continue to sin the ultimate curse will be exile from the Land of Israel. Dt 30:1ff. then describes the final redemption:

"And it will be when all the these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, and you will return with your heart in all the nations wherein Yehovah your God has cast you. And you will return to Yehovah your God and obey his voice according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, with all your heart and all your soul. And Yehovah will return your captivity and have mercy upon you and he will again gather you in from all the nations wherein Yehovah your God has scattered you. If your dispersed ones be at the end of the heavens, from there will Yehovah your God gather you and from there will he take you. And Yehovah your God will bring you to the land that your fathers inherited and you will inherit it; And he will do good to you and make you multiply more than your fathers. And Yehovah your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed to love Yehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul in order that you will live."

We see from the above passage in Deuteronomy that after Israel repents Yehovah will return their exile to Israel (a second time!) and will cut his covenant into the hearts of the people. Returning to Jeremiah 31:32 we see that the end of days is described as period in which the covenant of Yehovah is written on the hearts of the people:

"For this is the covenant which I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says Yehovah; I will place my Torah in their inner parts and I will write it upon their hearts and I will be to them God and they will be to me a people."

The End of Days of Jeremiah and the Redemption of Dt 30 are one and the same event. In Dt 4:30 we are told explicitly that the End of Days will be brought on by the repentance of Israel:

"...in the End of Days you will return to Yehovah your God and obey his voice... And he will not forget the covenant which he swore to your fathers..." (see the broader context in Dt 4:25-31 from which it is clear that this refers to the exact same sequence of events as Dt 30:1ff.).

Thus there is no secret as to when the End of Days will take place. As can be gleaned from Dt 4 and 30, as soon as Israel repents and returns to Yehovah, the exile will end and the period of the renewed covenant will begin. With the great majority of the People of Israel still in the exile, and those in the Land of Israel following the path of iniquity, this time seems far off. We can only pray that the People of Israel repent and fulfill their duty to be a guide to the nations. Until that day it is the duty of every human being, both from Israel and the Nations, to keep the commandments of Yehovah in his holy Torah so that the time will come when:

"no longer shall a person teach his fellow and a man his brother saying 'Know Yehovah!' for they will all know me from the littlest one to the greatest, says Yehovah". (Jer 31:33 [KJV 31:34])

A Final Note on Daniel

Even if we could decipher the chronology of the prophecies of Daniel (which Dan 12:10 indicates we can not do!) this would not necessarily give us a precise date for the End of Days. We learn in Dan 9 that a predicted end time can be delayed if Israel sins. At the beginning of Dan 9, the prophet looks into the Book of Jeremiah and discovers that the Babylonian exile is to end after 70 years. Daniel proceeds to pray to Yehovah to forgive the people of Israel and to bring them back from exile. Was this a vain prayer since the fate of Israel was determined beforehand by the prophecy of Jeremiah? Why did Daniel see a need to ask for forgiveness when the time of the redemption of Israel was set in advance? If we look at Daniel's prayer we see the reason for his trepidation. Daniel calls to Yehovah:

"Master hear! Master forgive! Master Listen and Do, Do not delay!" (verse 19)

Daniel realizes that if Yehovah does not forgive his people for their sins the end of the 70 years would be "delayed", perhaps indefinitely. This is an important lesson when trying to decipher the chronology of the end time in the Book of Daniel. Even if we can figure out what periods are referred to in Daniel's prophecies we must realize that if there is not repentance then the date of the Redemption will be delayed, as Daniel himself teaches us in his prayer.

http://karaite-korner.org/end_of_days.shtml

[MrMacSon]

What is MMT??

[John2]

http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/e ... 75?s.num=3

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/courses/4 ... /4QMMT.htm

I also linked to Eisenman and Wise's translation earlier (and it has the Hebrew).

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/scrol ... tm#Chapter

[Ben C. Smith]

What is MMT??

4QMMT.

[John2]

One other thing about MMT and the letter in Acts 15. Both letters were written by "we":

And finally, we wrote you about some of the works of the Law, which we reckoned for your own good and for that of your people, for we see that you possess discernment and knowledge of the Torah. Consider all these things, and beseech Him to grant you proper counsel, and to keep you far from evil thoughts and the counsel of Belial. Then you will rejoice at the End Time, when you find some of our words were true.

We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

[Secret Alias]

This whole hypothesis is so out there. MMT is based around a legal dispute, in other words, the Torah is acknowledged to have authority but the correct manner of interpreting the Torah is the basis for a vicious dispute between at least two parties. How is this at all like Acts?

[Secret Alias]

It's like saying a horse is like a chipmunk because both breathe air.

[John2]

Beyond the overall similarity between MMT and Luke-Acts it is interesting to note that what is planned after the meeting in Jerusalem described in Acts 15 is the writing of a letter informing the recipients of the decisions made; perhaps MMT is best understood not as a letter authorized by an individual (the 'Teacher of Righteousness') but rather as the reporting of decisions perhaps taken in a council setting, not unlike that in Acts 15. This would make better sense of the first-person plural pronoun used in MMT.

https://books.google.com/books?id=t7TSr ... ts&f=false

The first methodological factor to take into consideration is the way elements of a common form are used in both texts.

https://books.google.com/books?id=2OneB ... ts&f=false

MMT has been discussed in comparison with the Gospels and Acts; some have found similarities in their theologies and modes of discourse. But perhaps the closest parallels, in terms of literary form, can be found in the New Testament epistles.

https://books.google.com/books?id=EUawC ... ts&f=false

[John2]

See also Doering, "4QMMT and the Letters of Paul":

It is my suggestion that the letters of Paul can in turn illuminate aspects of the genre of MMT and the text's early reception.

https://books.google.com/books?id=4URWA ... wn&f=false