A brief look into Biblical history by way of Daniel. Part 1
Posted : 24 Jun, 2012 06:53 PM
Before I begin, I just want to start off by saying that I am no scholar/scribe and that the things that I have come to learn during my years of research have no absolute authority over another view that is contrary to mine. This view is not here to sway or change anyone's mind into walking in the Lord like me in any way. This contribution, much like all of the rest of what I (or anyone else for that matter) have posted is here to edify the body of believers, while even challenging others into researching things on their own (if the Lord wills it), and to incite some input from the brethren in order to get to know each other in Christ fully, by reasoning together. So, with this in mind, I thank you in advance for your time to read this.
As some of you know, I have been doing some research into the Jewish history and customs about the way they met in synagogues to get a clearer understanding of how they "worshiped" before, during, and after the time Jesus. I could give many reasons for why the Lord put this on my heart, but too be honest with you, the reasons alone would take longer to write out, so I will just share what the Lord has brought to me this far (on something that "seems" simple enough to explain).
The period of my beginning is at the time of the exile of Israel into Babylon. This period is when most of the history of Israel was already chronicled and the major prophets have all be written concerning (both northern and southern) Israel's disobedience, punishment, divorce, exile, length of exile, and restoration as a religious nation again. (For anyone who wants to know, these are the books written before the captivity: Job [Job is the oldest and earliest book written. He was considered to have lived during the time of Abraham's call in Genesis 12.], Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st Samuel, 2nd Samuel, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, 1st Kings, 2nd Kings, Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, 1st Chronicles, and 2nd Chronicles.) The books (These are also written in a chronological order by title for your benefit.)of Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi have not been written yet. I will be making some points out of the books mentioned in hopes of the reader getting a better understanding as to how I came to this view by way of chronology and cultural beliefs according to them.
The years of the exile begin roughly around 586 BC after the destruction of the 1st Temple which Solomon built somewhere in between 1000 BC to 800 BC. Israel as a nation has been taken into Babylon because of their adulteress behavior towards God with a promise of a Messianic era where God would restore all things with His anxious and faithful followers who had faith in His everlasting redemption. All throughout the pre-exilic times, God spoke through the early prophets of His Anointed one's coming to put an end to death and restoring the original relationship with Him in Paradise before sin entered the world. Israel as a whole, seemed to have forgotten this and put their faith in the "works of the Law" as a permanent fixture and resorting to the rest of the Gentile nations' examples of rulers, customs, and attitudes as a collective while excluding the rest of the world from the blessing of their God. very few chose to have a personal relationship with the Lord. All of these things, coupled with the most obvious, culminated into the exile.
The time of the exile forced the "Jews(This is the first time the title is used to refer to the people of Judea by the Assyrians. See 2 Kings 18, 2 Chron. 32:18, and Esther 2:5)" into a more personal relationship with the Lord. Though not all of the thoughts and customs were beneficial to the Jews that came out of the exile, we can gather that this is the first time where the Scriptures were read and studied by men other than the Temple priests, because Daniel was not from a Levitical priesthood. Some people suggest that Daniel "may" have been a distant relative of the Kingly line of David by the way that verse Daniel 1:3 reads, but it is highly debatable. The Jews were still practicing their religion when they came into Chaldea and secluding from pagan (common) practices in the beginning (Dan. 1: 5, 8, and 12), but they eventually intermingled with them (Dan. 3:8, 12).
From the mid-exile writings we can see that the angels are actually given names for the first time during this period as well as certain specific functions. Michael and Gabriel are good examples of this. In early Jewish beliefs angels were never named or separated until the exile. Ironically, the Jews originally viewed all angels as sons of God even the haSatans (Jb. 1:6; 2:1). The early Judeans never really had an ideology of evil being personified in one supreme angel until the Babylonian period when certain "ideologies" intertwined. Not all of them completely explained or validated a certain view but that never seemed to stop the Jews from adding these arguments within their beliefs. The Jews had an un-evolved (or unexplored really) belief in that angels of God were susceptible to sin and fall just like men in their lusts (Gen. 6:1-4). The identification of these angels and their duties also brought about the discovery of a certain head angel, named Samael, who was a destroying angel (Ex. 12:23; Job 33:22; Prov. 16:14) and also known as death itself (Psa. 89:48; 91:5-6; Jb. 18:13; and Hab. 3:5) that had charge over angels and caused them to rebel against God because he thought too highly of his position as the accuser, and opposer of Israel. Much of these beliefs are recoded in the extra-Biblical writings of the Jews known as the Talmuds, and Mishnahs. These beliefs and debates on these views which were written in the Jewish "Rabbinical" books eventually paved the way for this "new" revelation of the Scriptures into the New Testament period.
The Babylonians also intermingled with the Jews and learned of the God of Israel during this time. We know this because the magi and astrologers (Dan 2:2,10, 27; 4:7; 5:7, 11) who came from the east originated from this region to search out the King who would be born to the Jews (Mat. 2:1-2, 5, 9-10). The only way that these people of the east could know of Messiah's birth was from the Jewish writings during the time of Daniel's stay in Babylon. After all, Daniel was the only one who came to know that the Messiah would actually visit the Second Temple before it was even decreed to be built yet.
In the time of the exile we see that the Jews had several periods of persecution and peace to worship the God of Israel because different kings would arise and force them to worship their gods. The first persecution was around king Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 3). After God protects Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego there seems to be a time of peace for the Jews which may have been the perfect time for Jews to gather together and study the Word of God collectively by way of synagogues. The lack of a Temple and sacrifices gave the Jews more room to interpret the Scriptures and practice the religion on a more personal level with God. There was no longer a "carrying out" of the ritualistic aspect to worship the Lord, while at the same time formulating a "new" way of religious practice. This practice came in the form of the gatherings. Although the original k'nesset (assembling) of the Israelites gathered for prayer, and to read the Torah in homes, they soon were given the luxury to practice this gathering in public places as a center for Jewish spiritual and community life that was a replacement for the Temple even though they were not highly respected by the Chaldean because of their seclusion from worshiping the eastern gods. We see this lack of respect for the Jews come out more in Daniel 5 by way f the third king. King Belshazzar, who was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, threw a banquet for his lords (Dan. 5:1) and got so drunk that he did something that his two predecessors had more control and regard for - he added his concubines and wives to the party and used spoils of victory from Israel which were dedicated to their god, as common utensils as an insult (Dan 5:3-4). Once again, the Jews go into a time of persecution for their public worship of the Lord God of Israel by Ahasuerus (Esther 3:8) because of Haman. The time lasts peace until Darius rules after his father (Dan. 9:1) who was also deceived by these men the same way Haman did by accusing Jews from the law of the land (Dan. 6:5-9).
But one thing during these times remains to be noted is that the Jews still met to read the Scriptures and saw a clearer revelation of when the Messiah would come to visit His people and put an end to sin.
When I left off part 1 of this on going exploration, I ended off with this;
"But one thing during these times remains to be noted is that the Jews still met to read the Scriptures and saw a clearer revelation of when the Messiah would come to visit His people and put an end to sin."
So, let's get a more in depth view of the culture and times of the Jews at the time of Babylon. Shall we? Oh! Wait! How can we do this when there is really nothing to go on according to some historians and archeologists, you might ask? Good question! Since all we have is texts to go with which are what the majority of historians and archeologists use to validate the cultures by, then we too, will go and explore the cultures by those texts. That make sense? ;-)
The book of Daniel is said to be written around the early 500 BCs. Some date it being written around 530 BC. There is a new belief growing amongst scholars date it to be a later writing within the 200s to the 50 BCs because of the "prophetic" accuracy of the events (by way of it being a future event at the time of it being written and fulfilled after it was written) that happened couldn't be so accurate unless it was chronicled after the event. I would agree with this opinion, BUT the fact that the Septuagint (The Greek literal translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.) was written by 72 Jews for King Ptolemy the 2nd in Alexandria because he wanted to make this place the most learned city of all the religions, and beliefs of the world was dated at 300 BC kind of puts a "small hole" in that theory. Ironically enough, the Jews actually used the Septuagint (With the exception of the Temple priests who used the original Hebrew for the Temple uses.) afterwards because of its accessibility well into Jesus' day. The Jews decided to forgo the use of Septuagint several hundreds of years of Christ because the Christian faith used this in order to prove their ties to the Messiah of Israel. (This little known fact is hardly taught in our circles today, but if you ever cross referenced some verses from the New Testament Greek from the Old Testament verses, you'd see that the translation is not the same. This is because the NT quotes the Septuagint.) The Jews introduced the "Masoretic" texts to combat the Christians and what was now considered to be "their" translation of the Jewish Scriptures. What is amusing about the validation of the Septuagint and its authenticity is that the story of the Jews translating the Hebrew into the Greek Septuagint comes straight OUT OF THEIR OWN TALMUDS.
So, back to Daniel's day. As we can see from the text about Daniel and his people, he was a learned man who was also able to know and learn the ways of the kings and to dispatch his laws upon other foreign lands (Dan, 1:3, 17; 6:1-2). Daniel, was gifted by God to understand His will by way of the nations. Although the Jews of this period still were secluding from the pagan world, Daniel and others like him, would be able to see a bigger glimpse into God's plan of bringing in the Messiah. If we note of the earlier writings, the Jews are to be separate from the world and not even bother to evangelize the nations into knowing their God, because God was making Himself manifest to them already in dreams, visions, and signs that God used in order for the Jews first to acknowledge and expound upon.
Although Daniel (and I use him as a representative of all the Jews in this period) was loyal to the King of the land, he was even more loyal to his God. He, as his custom, would read the Scriptures, meditate upon them, and pray to God. As time went on in the gatherings of the Jews, they became more structured and introduced more theological discussions in their meetings. The once small groups of gatherings started to grow to the point of establishing a proper assembly among themselves. This is when the gatherings were "made" official by there being 10 men or more present in the assembly. The laws concerning the foods, and the nations were still being kept out of "ritualistic" cleanness from the idolatrous world. Only Jews were allowed to attend these gatherings. As time went on, Jews were once again an exclusive social club with no real form of worship by way of sacrificing to their God like the rest of the world did. This is what brought about the yearning for a Temple and homeland for the Jews. As they gathered together and discussed the Scriptures they read, they came to be more of a theologian than a full fledged practitioner of their religion. This is where most of the dogmatic teachings of the Rabbinate originated from in Jesus' day. Although some didn't get added on until later on, the legalism had it's foundation in Babylon.
Discussions of how and when God created the heavens and the earth have it's roots here also. All sorts of ways to conduct their daily lives in a foreign land as well as what and how they should interpret the Scriptures according to the more popular agreements among themselves. The Sabbath of God was discussed here too. The idea of God resting from all of His works of His creation was a popular one. It was so popular that the intertwined this belief with the Sabbath command to the Exodus Jews to keep. It really wasn't the case for it, but it was the most accepted among the many who gathered so they fused it together. The discussion of the Sabbath (amongst other topics) was so important to them that they actually started to debate as to what was considered too heavy to lift, or how far to walk, and reasons for helping others. The WHOLE LAW OF MOSES was discussed (Deut 5:1-6:25). All of the "statutes", "ordinances", "commandments", "judgments", and "testimonies" (Deut 5:1; 30;10; Num 36:13; Lev 19:1-37; Lev 23; Lev 27:34; and Ezekiel 20:19-21) of God were subject of discussion. The Law of the Lord was constantly upon the Jewish mind which put a deeper yearning to return to the land God had taken away from them for not being faithful to their agreement and to restore the religious way of living for their God.
This brand of revived zeal mixed with legalism that sprang from the lack of a Levitical hierarchy was both good and bad for the faithful.
The bad; because it brought about a religious reform that was based more on a mixed legalism based on Babylonian influence than it was for the simplicity of the Message of God. One such "command" that came with came along with the exile was that of how women were to be completely servile to their husbands more so. This is where Paul gets this Law of women asking their husbands at home from in 1 Corinthians 14 (See Esther chapter 1 and pay attention to the last verse).
The GOOD!: It brought a more detailed view of the awaited Messiah whom the Lord would send. Since all of the Law (The Jews considered EVERY WRITTEN WORD of God as Law. Paul uses this example when He quotes Isaiah 28:11-12 AS THE LAW in 1 Corinthians 14:21. Jesus does this also in John 10:34 and 15:25. One thing that is noticed within the text, is that Jesus calls this "Law" in reference to the Jews".) was discussed, then so too, was the Messiah. This is when the Law was searched and verses that were applied to earthly situations and events were also applied to the birth, ministry, and reason of the Messiah's coming to the forefront of the Jewish mind. With these prophetic verses unfolded, the Messiah was constantly on their lips. The Jews always knew that the Messiah would come to redeem them in the future, but they never knew when He would come. Daniel was the first man of God to reveal WHEN the Messiah would come into the world!
A brief look into Biblical history by way of Daniel. Part 1
Posted : 25 Jun, 2012 08:05 AM
Agape-
I love the way you started this post!!!:applause:
before I begin, I just want to start off by saying that I am no scholar/scribe and that the things that I have come to learn during my years of research have no absolute authority over another view that is contrary to mine. This view is not here to sway or change anyone's mind into walking in the Lord like me in any way. This contribution, much like all of the rest of what I (or anyone else for that matter) have posted is here to edify the body of believers, while even challenging others into researching things on their own (if the Lord wills it), and to incite some input from the brethren in order to get to know each other in Christ fully, by reasoning together. So, with this in mind, I thank you in advance for your time to read this.
I will have to finish reading it later to comment.
I noticed you are my distant neighbor..I am familiar with Elmwood Park and the circle mainly the dance studio ...back 25 years ago.
