60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The Era

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Nathan
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Nathan »

Secret Alias wrote:
Everyone knew Ezra wrote the Torah?? Who's everyone? Clearly not the author of the Bava Batra passage.
Various pagans ...
Such as?
Secret Alias wrote:... and Christians (Irenaeus just the earliest).
Bullshit. Irenaeus accepts Mosaic authorship in both Against Heresies and Proof of the Apostolic Preaching. (In the latter, for instance, he introduces a garbled version of Genesis 1:1 with the words: "Moses, who was the first to prophecy, says in Hebrew" etc.)
Secret Alias wrote: In short everyone outside of the Israelite community.
Bullshit.
Secret Alias wrote:The fact that the Torah tells the story of Moses's death means only an idiot could think Moses wrote the last verses of Deuteronomy.

Which of the ancients thought the end of Deuteronomy completely disqualified Mosaic authorship? (The text from Bavli Bava Batra attributes it to Joshua, all the while attributing the remainder to Moses.)
Secret Alias wrote:Sanhedrin 21 should certainly be read as echoing the contemporary environment in which Jews lived where Ezra was said to be the author of this earliest of pseudepigraphas.
More bullshit. Sanhedrin 21b comments on the merits of Ezra. It states only that had he not been preceded by Moses, he would have been worthy to receive the Torah — which by implication means (in the author's view) it was Moses who received the Torah.

Your interpretation is odd and clearly misconstrues the text.
Secret Alias wrote:The Samaritan reading of 'Torah' in the Pentateuch is ONLY as a reference to the Ten Commandments.
Still more bullshit. Samaritan tradition accepts Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Memar Marqah 4.1, for instance, says:
Moses expounded five books ... Exalted is the great prophet Moses whose every word is life and blessing, who revealed ... the five books which he received.
Secret Alias
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Secret Alias »

Bullshit. Irenaeus accepts Mosaic authorship in both Against Heresies and Proof of the Apostolic Preaching. (In the latter, for instance, he introduces a garbled version of Genesis 1:1 with the words: "Moses, who was the first to prophecy, says in Hebrew" etc.)
You're obviously too stupid to be at this forum 1. Forget everything you think you know. 2. Actually read an ancient author. 3. Go back to 1:

https://books.google.com/books?id=cI8SD ... us&f=false
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Nathan
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Nathan »

Secret Alias wrote:
Bullshit. Irenaeus accepts Mosaic authorship in both Against Heresies and Proof of the Apostolic Preaching. (In the latter, for instance, he introduces a garbled version of Genesis 1:1 with the words: "Moses, who was the first to prophecy, says in Hebrew" etc.)
You're obviously too stupid to be at this forum 1. Forget everything you think you know. 2. Actually read an ancient author. 3. Go back to 1:

https://books.google.com/books?id=cI8SD ... us&f=false
You remind me of my little nieces and nephew. They too throw a tantrum when their toys are taken away.

You want your Sanhedrin 21b back? Fine. Go ahead. Have a blast. Continue to bullshit away. I'll say nothing more.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by neilgodfrey »

Secret Alias wrote:
Bullshit. Irenaeus accepts Mosaic authorship in both Against Heresies and Proof of the Apostolic Preaching. (In the latter, for instance, he introduces a garbled version of Genesis 1:1 with the words: "Moses, who was the first to prophecy, says in Hebrew" etc.)
You're obviously too stupid to be at this forum 1. Forget everything you think you know. 2. Actually read an ancient author. 3. Go back to 1:

https://books.google.com/books?id=cI8SD ... us&f=false
I read the modern author, Ronald E. Heine, that you linked above. There was nothing there to support your three-point method to somehow deny that Irenaeus believed in Mosaic authorship .... Nothing there that I could see that assures us that Ezra wrote the Torah.

Perhaps you could quote for us the actual words that simpletons like me are missing.
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Secret Alias
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Secret Alias »

neil

Funny how you won't address the ideas that (1) all Israelite societies are founded on the Pentateuch and (2) the Pentateuch is fundamentally set on the expectation (or claim) that SOMEONE LIKE MOSES is to arrive in contemporary history and want to focus on this stupid argument.

Simpleton version of argument (by analogy as all 'simpleton versions' are explained this way):

Mother away at work comes home to find broken ping pong paddle on the floor. The new table tennis set was bought for their daughter the night before. Asks doting father to explain. He says 'our daughter had a fit when the paddle wasn't working so she smashed it on the ground. Did you punish her, the mother asked. Oh no, he responds, she said the paddle was already broken out of the package.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Secret Alias »

1 Enoch times the falsification of scripture to the time of Ezra - the people who returned from Babylon, the Ezra tradition. Far from restoring the true temple and the true Scriptures, they were a generation of impure apostates who had forsaken wisdom and lost their vision (1 En.89.73; 93.8-9). Lying words had been written, perverting the eternal covenant; sinners had altered the truth as they made copies, they had made great fabrications and written books in their own name (1 En. 98.14-99.2; 104.10-11)
The story of Ezra in 4 Ezra (2Esd) - already implies he is a second Moses. The prophet Ezra, whose genealogy presents him as descended from Aaron (2 Esd.1.1), heard the Most High speaking to him from a bush. This Ezra was a new Moses, but he was not named Moses. He was told to take five scribes and many writing tablets and then to write what was revealed to him. In forty days he dictated 9422 books, and was told by the Most High that only the first 24 were to be made public. The text suggests that Ezra’s contemporaries were bereft of the law as a result of its having been incinerated (14:21). Ezra received the commission to rewrite the law of God with the assistance of five companions (vv. 22-25). Upon completion of the forty days of rigorous scribal work a total of ninety-four books were produced (v. 44). As the first twenty-four books were to be made indiscriminately available to all people, presumably these texts corresponded with those comprising the Tanakh (v. 45). Thus, portions of these texts were available for publishing inthe public domain while the final compositions were reserved exclusively for “the wise among”Ezra’s people (vv. 26, 45-46).
Pagans identified Ezra to have written the Pentateuch - Porphyry Adversus Christianos fr 465 “Nothing has been preserved of Moses, as all his writings are said to have been burnt together with the temple. And all those which were written under his name afterwards were composed inaccurately one thousand one hundred and eighty years after Moses' death by Ezra and his followers."
Jews acknowledge that Ezra wrote the Bible - An anonymous medieval Jewish commentary on Ps. 137 from Northern France states that “Ezrawent up [to the land of Israel] from Babylonia and wrote all of the [biblical] books” [...] (English trans. from Dr. Eran Viezel, Reading Medieval Jewish Exegesis notes, Hebrew University, 2012. The Hebrew reads) This statement concurs with an earlier account recorded in the post 70 C.E. Jewish apocalyptic work of 4 Ezra (sometimes referred to as 2 Esdras or Apocalypse of Ezra.
Jews acknowledged that pagans said the Pentateuch was forged by someone in Moses's name - Num Rab 8:4 R. Hiyya bar Abba said in the name of R. Yohanan...and the nations of the world would say: Their Law is forged": Yalqut Shimoni on Jer., sect. 321 "R. Luliana said: a [Roman] judge asked R Yosi "As far as I can see your Law is a forgery."
Christians acknowledged that Ezra wrote the Pentateuch we have in our possession - Irenaeus chapter 21 of book 3 he relays a tradition (possibly hinging on 4 Ezra) that“during the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, the Scriptures had been corrupted, and when, after seventy years, the Jews had returned to their own land, then, in the times of Artaxerxes the king of the Persians” […]God “inspired Esdras the priest [i.e. Ezra], of the tribe of Levi, to recast all the words of the former prophets”(Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.21.2) See Roberts, A. and J. Donaldson, Eds. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1,Irenaeus, “Against Heresies” (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publ. Inc., 1994). Tertullian [De cultu fem. 3), and Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.22:149) repeat the same information that Irenaeus borrowed from 2Esd. Bickermann "Jerome left it to his readers to decide whether Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, or Ezra had drawn up the text of the Law (Adv. Helvidium 7); but antinomian Christians underlined the fact that the Jewish law was a book by Ezra, not by Moses (Ps. -Clementine Hom. 2.47)
Christians continued to adopt Irenaeus's position in debates with Muslims over Ezra's authorship of the Pentateuch - Caliph Umar II (A.Jeffery ‘Ghevond’s Text of the Correspondence between Umar II and Leo III’ Harvard Theological Revue 37 (1944) pp. 717-741) wrote to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III (717-740): ‘You declare that the Code was more than once written by the Children of Israel who read it and understood it, and that it was many times lost, so that for a long time there was nothing remaining of it remaining among them, till at a later period some men recomposed it out of their own heads... Why is it that in the Mosaic Code one finds no clear indication of either heaven or hell, or of the resurrection or judgement?’71 Leo acknowledged that the Scriptures had been written by Ezra, but declared that the books were exactly like those which had been lost, due to ‘the marvellous work of God’. Umar’s attitude could be dismissed as petulance (‘our beliefs are not there so it must be wrong.’), but the ‘lost’ Scriptures rejected by the Ezra tradition do in fact deal with heaven and hell, resurrection and judgement
Christians acknowledged that parts of the Pentateuch in our possession were forged by someone after Moses - Justin (forget the reference) Pseudo-Clementines (forget the reference) Rufinus says that Origen wrote the Hexapla only to refute the Jews “because they lied, since in our Scriptures a considerable number of passages had been changed, or lacking, or added on.” In 781CE, when the Caliph Mahdi and the Patriarch Timothy debated the two faiths, the Caliph accused Christians of removing from Scripture testimonies to Muhammed. ‘If you had not corrupted the Scriptures, you would have found in them Muhammed as well as the other prophets.’
Jews acknowledge that God could not have written parts of the Pentateuch - b Meg 31b
Israelites might have reason to say that he "counterfeited" Scripture by instructing them to do things which he was not commanded by God - Sifre on Deut 3.23 sect 26, Lev Rabba 31.4
Samaritans say Ezra falsified the Torah - cf M. Seligsohn and E.N. Adler, "Une Nouvelle Chronique Samaritaine", Revue des Etudes Juives, 1902, p. 202. Abu'l Fath says that Dositheus "changed a lot of the Torah, like Ezra", and also composed books of his own.
Karaites accuse Jews of accepting Ezra's authorship of the Pentateuch - The tenth century CE Karaite al Qirqisani ( L Nemoy’s translation of Al Qirqisani’s account of the Jewish Sects and Christianity in HUCA 7 (1930) pp.317-397, p.331) wrote an account of the Jewish sects and their history. He accused the Rabbinic Jews of teaching that Ezra gave a new Torah. ‘They say that the Torah which is in the hands of the people is not the one brought down by Moses, but is a new one composed by Ezra, for, according to them, the one brought down by Moses perished and was lost and forgotten. This is the abrogation of the entire faith. If the Moslems only knew about this assertion of theirs, they would not need any other thing to reproach us with, and use as an argument against us.’ He went on to list the many ways in which the Rabbinic Jews differed from all other Jewish groups, and concluded that they surpassed even the Christians in nonsense and lying. Ezra again.
Muslim takes on the Ezra story - Hava Lazarus-Yafeh notes that “theaccusation that Jews and Christians had falsified their Scriptures (Tahrif) is the most basic Muslim argument against both Old and New Testaments.”Furthermore, tahrif is a “central theme” to theQur’an, “used mainly to explain away the contradictions between the Bible and the Qur’an, and to establish that thecoming of Muhammad and the rise of Islam had indeed been predicted in the uncorrupted ‘true’ Bible.” Intertwined Worlds (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992),p. 19. The Islamic allegation that the Hebrew Bible had beencorrupted is not primarily an innovation external to the Qur’an. Indeed, a precedent appears to be embedded within Qur’an S. 6.91 which states, ‘And they did not appraise Allah with true appraisal when they said, ‘Allah did not reveal to a human being anything.’ Say, ‘Who revealed the Scripture that Moses brought as light and guidance tothe people? You [Jews] make it into pages, disclosing [some of] it and concealing much. And you were taught thatwhich you knew not–neither you nor your fathers.’ Say, ‘Allah [revealed it].’ Then leave them in their [empty]discourse, amusing themselves.” The notion that the Scriptures were “concealed much” seems to imply that,according to the Qur’an, an act of tampering or obfuscation of the text had presumably taken place. For further insight and examples cf. Qur’an S. 5.13, 41; Lazarus-Yafeh, pp. 20-2 https://www.academia.edu/8274452/The_Fo ... d_Ibn_Hazm
Last edited by Secret Alias on Mon Mar 06, 2017 2:07 pm, edited 8 times in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Secret Alias »

As such it is not at all a misrepresentation to say that Ezra's authorship of the Pentateuch was always lurking in the background likely since his authorship of the Torah.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
John2
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by John2 »

Stephan wrote:
(1) all Israelite societies are founded on the Pentateuch and (2) the Pentateuch is fundamentally set on the expectation (or claim) that SOMEONE LIKE MOSES is to arrive in contemporary history...
I agree with Stephan. Judaism is a messianic religion, at least since the time of the prophets, if not earlier, because even though the Torah doesn't use the word "messiah" in the later sense it refers to the expectation of a leader like Moses, and anyone who lived after the time of the prophets and regarded the OT as divine was at least plausibly aware of and expected "the Messiah" (however it was understood).

And the two largest sects during the first century CE, the Pharisees and Essenes (with the Pharisees being the most influential), believed in the resurrection of the dead, and this is associated with the coming of one like a son of man and the End of Days in Dan. 9 and Is. 26. And it looks to me like Josephus (who was a Pharisee) understood Dan. 9:25-26 (which refers to the coming of a messiah, however it is understood) as a prediction about the destruction of Jerusalem, since it refers to a square, or "rechob":

War 6.5.4:
Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our race what is for their preservation; but that men perish by those miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves; for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple four-square, while at the same time they had it written in their sacred oracles, that then should their city be taken, as well as their holy house, when once their temple should become four-square.
Dan. 9:25-26:
Learn, then, and understand that from the time the command is given to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed prince comes, seven sets of seven time periods and sixty-two sets of seven time periods will pass. Jerusalem will be restored and rebuilt with a city square and a moat during the troubles of those times. But after the sixty-two sets of seven time periods, the Anointed One will be cut off and have nothing. The city and holy place will be destroyed with the prince who is to come. His end will come with a flood until the end of the destructive war that has been determined.
Most other translations have rechob as "plaza" or "street," but square is certainly possible (the "city" part in the translation above is not in the Hebrew):

Rechob ("open square (7), open squares (1), plaza (1), plazas (1), square (14), squares (4), street (1), streets (13), town squares (1)").

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/7339.htm

Regarding the Ezra issue, I recalled that at least one pagan said he wrote the Torah (Porphyry), and it turns out to be the case, as Stephen cited. And San. 21b-22a does say that Ezra at least changed the script of the Torah (even if R. Judah thought it was originally written that way, then changed, then changed back by Ezra):
And even though the Torah was not given through him [Ezra], its writing was changed through him, as it is written: And the writing of the letter was written in the Aramaic character and interpreted into the Aramaic [tongue]. And again it is written, And they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Further, it is written: And he shall write the copy [mishneh] of this law — in writing which was destined to be changed. Why is it called Ashshurith? — Because it came with them from Assyria. It has been taught: Rabbi said: The Torah was originally given to Israel in this [Ashshurith] writing. When they sinned, it was changed into Ro'az. But when they repented, the [Assyrian characters] were re-introduced, as it is written: Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope; even to-day do I declare that I will bring back the Mishneh unto thee. Why [then] was it named Ashshurith? — Because its script was upright [me'ushshar].


So according to this the Torah as we have it is a product of Ezra, even if it wasn't thought to have been given through him (and was disputed by R. Simeon b. Eliezer in the following passage).
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Secret Alias
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Secret Alias »

And it looks to me like Josephus (who was a Pharisee) understood Dan. 9:25-26
I've often wondered whether Daniel was rewritten in the first century to have history reshape prediction. No solid proof or anything. But what evidence do we really have that Daniel was first.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: 60 Scholars On Messianic Expectation At The Turn Of The

Post by Secret Alias »

And San. 21b-22a does say that Ezra at least changed the script of the Torah
But surely the tradition is broader and more specific than the mere shapes of letters used. The citations I provided were quite detailed.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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