teachmevp

Romans just keep that Greek system going on. The Romans, when they came on the scene, in the East, and they gradually became more and more powerful, they destroyed Corinth in a big battle in 144BC. Pompey was the Roman general who took over Jerusalem in 63BC. So the Romans were in charge of Judah from 63BC on. And this is very important, because the Romans, as their power grew in the East, they simply moved increasingly into the eastern Mediterranean and they adopted the whole Greek system, the Greek world, and they didn’t even try to make it non-Greek. So Romans didn’t go around trying to get people in the East to speak Latin. They might put up an official inscription in an Eastern City in Latin, but they’d almost always, if it was an official inscription, it would also be listed in Greek, So Romans who ruled in the East were expected to speak Greek. And by this time all educated Roman men were expected to be able to speak Greek, well if possible. So the Romans didn’t try to make the East Roman, in that sense, culturally, nor did they try to change the language. Greek language, culture, and religions, different religions and the syncretism, Greek education, the polis structure=all of these things remained in the East throughout the Roman rule of the East, all the way up until the time you had a Christian emperor with Constantine, and later.

Crunch time is here, that gathering together is a coming. What will I do, I will be see Yeshua as he is, Yeshua has that life Yahweh has within himself, in some kind of flesh and bone body. You'ins that are hanging on to that spirit teaching will miss out. You'ins that believe Yeshua is Yahweh will miss out. Wake up people.

Alexander's goals, are they yours? Alexander also used what is called ‘religious syncretism,’ Alexander took this tendency of syncretism, of mixing together different religious traditions from different places, and he used it as a self-conscious propaganda technique. Alexander even started claiming divine status for himself. Alexander went around passing out rumors that his mother had actually been impregnated by the god Apollo, when he appeared as a snake in her bed. So, Alexander is putting himself forward as divine. Why? This is not a Greek tradition, but it’s very much a tradition in the East for kings to be considered by their people to be gods. Alexander says, “Well, if they can be gods, I can be a god.” So Alexander starts spreading rumors that he is divine himself. Alexander probably even believed it; and so he had a god father, he had a human mother, and so then he would identify himself with whoever was a god in the different places. So Alexander would identify himself as a Greek god with a Persian god. Alexander would identify the goddess Isis with some Greek goddess; and so all the time these different gods from different places were basically all said to be simply different cultural representations, different names, for what were generally the same gods all over the place. Also, though, what they would do is sometimes they wouldn’t try to simply say these gods are the same. What they would just do is add on more gods. They’d get to Syria, “Look at all these god that the Syrians worship. Well, we’ll just add those into our pantheon of gods too.” And this is part of what ancient religion was like, is that people were not exclusive. You didn’t have to worry. Just because you worshiped one god, doesn’t mean you couldn’t worship another god or several gods or five gods or a hundred gods. Gods knew who everybody was-they weren’t particularly jealous, in that sense. So this is the way people did it. But what Alexander and his successors did, was they made sort of a conscious, propagandistic decision to use religious syncretism to bind together their kingdoms.

Good stuff their Ham, I been learning that moral choices and actions of humans have consequences, so action that was taken in opposition to Yahweh, one bears the fruit of their actions. So the struggle is between producing good fruit or bad fruit?

Maybe we can have a Hanukkah like thing at the GreaseSpot, get rid of that logos greek teaching? Basic structures are part of any kind of Greek city in the Ancient World. And what Alexander and his successors did was they took that basic Greek structure, and they transplanted it all over the Eastern Mediterranean, whether they were in Egypt or Syria or Asia Minor or anyplace else. One can travel right now to Turkey or Syria or Israel or Jordan or Egypt, and one can see excavations of towns, and it’s remarkable how they all look so much alike, because they’re all inspired by this originally Greek model of the city. Alexander and his successors Hellenized the entire eastern Mediterranean, and that meant, every major city would have a certain commonality to it. It would have a certain koine to it; that is, a Greek overlay, over what may be also be there, the original indigenous kind of cultures and languages. Just what was this high priest named Jason thinking, when he built a gymnasium in Jerusalem in 175BC; he also founded a Greek City structure. The Greek polis, which is simply the Greek word for city, had several institutions that are very important; They all practiced a certain kind of Greek education. The Greek word paideia, means education, but it also means more than simply role learning or memorization or learning to read, like we think. Paideia is the Greek word that means the formation of the young man. Throughout all this it was mainly young men and boys who were educated, girls could be given some education, if their families were wealthy enough, but the cities didn’t really concern themselves so much with girls’ education. Their family might, but the cities concerned themselves with the education of their boys. So paideia referred to the education of the young man, both mentally, but militarily=so one was taught to fight=and culturally; one might be taught other things about culture. One might even have some music training or something like that. The place where this education took place was the gymnasium. Now a gymnasium doesn’t mean what it means in English, it actually comes from the Greek word for naked, gymnos. And the reason it was called ‘the naked place’ is because, of course, young Greek men always exercised in the nude and played sports in the nude. But this also became the place where one would do other kinds of learning. So if one was learning rhetoric, for example, you might practice giving speeches at the gymnasium. But also men in town would just kind of gather there, it was kind of a place where men gathered and they had gone to school at the same place. One would meet your friends, play games; so this would all take place in the gymnasium. Another institution was what they called the ephebeia. When one was a young boy, one would have studied just reading and writing Homer. When one got to be 16 or 22 around their, one might enter the ephebeia; one would become an ephebe, and that just meant that one was past their sort of early secondary training and now one was being really in training to be a warrior and a citizen. They would march together in a parade in town. They would go on military training perhaps together. They would also engage in sports together, and they would develop a camaraderie because they were expected then to be the fighting force for their city, their city-state. So the ephebeia was this institution that every boy had to go through in order then to be a full citizen of a city. Their also was these political structures, the first political structure is the demos. Demos just means the “people,” It’s just a Greek word for “the people.” But it actually referred more politically to all of the male citizens, and in Greek cities, by tradition, only men were citizens of a city. But all the men who were citizens had a vote, and the demos referred to that political body of voting men. Now they kept this idea that the demos=that is, the adult citizen males of a city=were a political body. And that’s when, if you had everybody come to the theater for a big debate about something, you could still have people voting in certain things that the city might decide to do, although they couldn’t rule themselves completely by themselves. Then they had a smaller council that might be 50 people. It varied the size, according to the city. The council was called the boule, and that referred to a smaller council of older men, usually, who made decisions that they then would put before the whole the demos the whole voting population. These are the basic structures that are part of a Greek City, and Jason just brought Alexander’s dream to Jerusalem. Their was a group of former high priests, who have been dislocated and other priestly families withdrawing from Jerusalem, and apparently going out in the desert, and maybe building a community out there, and we find out about them in the twentieth century when the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in the late 1940’s. So that may have been another way to respond to this increasing Hellenization in Jerusalem, to just pull away and from a different community.

Against all odds, got to wake people up to this logos cult? Against all odds, a rag tag bunch of basically guerilla fighters, up against a far superior army of Antiochus IV, they beat them, they retook Jerusalem, they didn’t actually beat them in Syria, they just beat them in several battle in Judah, and Judas “Judah the hammer” was able to recapture Jerusalem and the temple. In the year 164BC, they cleansed the temple of the profanation, the pollution of having pigs and things like that sacrificed, it being polluted as a Greek temple, and so 164BC is the beginning of the celebration of the Israelites holiday Hanukkah. So 164BC in the cleansing of the temple is what Israelites celebrate with Hanukah. The Israelite leaders who wanted to bring more Hellenization into the Jerusalem itself, and in 175BC, a high priest named Jason built that gymnasium in Jerusalem. So this whole process of Hellenization, therefore, sometimes we’ll get the idea that the Israelites were all good loyal Israelites just trying to keep the law, trying to keep Torah, and that Antiochus IV is putting all this on them and forcing Greek religion and Greek culture on them. That’s not really the way it happened, the Israelites started debating how much do we accommodate the dominant culture, how Greek should we be. The high priesthood was the main ruler of the Israelites at this time; they didn’t have a king, and they didn’t have a direct governor, so whoever controlled the high priesthood was sort of the political ruler also at this time. Antiochus was the one who had the privilege of appointing the high priest, Menelaus, another leading Israelite, seems to have offered Antiochus more money for the priesthood trying to get it away from Jason, and he couldn’t afford it. In order to pay for his own priesthood, he took gold vessels and instruments out of the temple treasury, and this seems to have caused a riot. We have two guys fighting for the high priesthood in Jerusalem, both with Greek names, not traditional Hebrew names, and both of them apparently trying to get in with this Hellenizing process. They get into a big fight. To settle things down in Jerusalem, Antiochus takes control of Jerusalem and he stationed Syrian troops, that is the Greco-Syrian troops, in Jerusalem in 167BC. Now things are heating up, around this time changes were made to the temple in Jerusalem. It may have been basically to accommodate the soldiers. They may have had to house soldiers from the Greco-Syrian Empire, and they may have used the temple mount apparently to house some of them. This caused changes to the temple. At this time Menelaus is in charge, and his Hellenizing party, which we could call the radical reformers, this is the beginning of the anti-Israelite laws. About this time several laws were passed that forbade circumcision, forbidden from observing the Torah; there was a pig sacrificed on the altar in Jerusalem in the Holy of Holies, and renaming it as a shrine to Zeus Olympus. If you’re one of these liberal Israelites, you may not really believe you’re doing anything bad. You’re not forsaking Yahweh, you're just updating Yahweh, you’re just bringing Yahweh up to the modern era. “Well what’s wrong with calling it Zeus Olympus; we all know these are just different names given to the same god anyway, there’s just one supreme god.”

Hi Roy, Paul had his thorns in his side, and Yahweh will deal with the people who caused them their thorns; the gathering together is getting really close Roy, when you find yourself in the day of Yahweh, don't worry about that number, if you get it or not, it wouldn't do you any good. You are going to stand before Yahweh and try to reason out this writing with Yahweh, good luck? On another thread, you said their is no Yahweh, now your on this thread thinking you know something about Yahweh?

I'm trying to figure out what this thing is in our blood that makes it sacred, that same blood is in the animals; kinda cool, because we have that power from on high in us, our bodys aren't ours either? The Image of Yahweh could be how the mind works or something like that?

So this blood is in everything, that blood belongs to Yahweh; could the image of Yahweh, be the way the mind is functioning, functioning different from the animals?

I really can't think of another blood, other then the blood everything has? I'm learning that the life is in the blood, but Genesis 9:6=whoever sheds the blood of man, in exchange for that man, shall his blood be shed, for in the image of Yahweh was man created; so in a way two things could be going on in the blood?

There is no way to compensate or punish someone for murder, it simply means forfeiture of one's own life; that's how sacred human life is? A good thing, no; but then again, it can be a wake up call in a way? Treating the blood of Yeshua, as ordinary blood is not a cool thing?

I guess the argument could be made that until they once disobeyed, how would they ever know that? And then you might raise all sorts of questions about, well, was this part of Yahweh's plan that they ought to know this and should know this, so that their choice for good actually becomes meaningful. Is it meaningful to choose to do the good, when you have no choice to do otherwise, or aren't aware that you have a choice to do other wise? Man's disobedience is the cause of the human predicament?

So they learn that they have moral autonomy, remember, they were made in the image of Yahweh, and they learn that they have moral autonomy by making the defiant choice, the choice for disobedience. So the very action that brought them a godlike awareness of their moral autonomy, was an action that was taken in opposition to Yahweh. So we see then that having knowledge of good and bad is no guarantee that one will choose or incline towards the good.

Human beings learn that they are able to do that, yet being created in the image of Yahweh carries a further implication. It implies that human life is going to be charged with specific duties towards and rights over the created world. It seems, therefore, that the idea of being created in the image of Yahweh is connected with those special rights and duties?

It's by eating of the fruit in defiance of Yahweh, human beings learn that they were able to do that, that they are free moral agents. They find that out. They're able to choose their actions in conformity with Yahweh's will or in defiance of Yahweh's will.

We all live that devoured like life, because they ate off that tree, it's up to our behavior if that is a good thing or not? Do you chuckle when you rebel, good thing for freedom of will?

It seems after the tree was eaten off, our behavior can get us devoured? Before they ate off that tree, they had freedom of will, would man on his own, figure out they had the freedom to rebel?

More history on that logos junk? How much Hellenization are you into? Alexander the Great, remember, wanted to set up a one world, a universal empire. He taught a sort of syncretism of religion, he taught a common language, Greek, he set up these Greek cities all around; that process is what is called Hellenization, so the Hellenization of the world in that time, the Hellenistic Period. The reason Hellenism is so important, is because what happened to Alexander's empire after he died. After much confusion and fighting among his major generals, after Alexander’s death, Alexander’s kingdom ended up being divided up into four major empires. One of Alexander’s generals Ptolemy II got the Kingdom of Egypt, and set up his own sort of Greco=Egyptian kingdom there. This Greek veneer when on, then came Antiochus IV reign from 175 to 165 BC; while Judah, though, was under Antiochus control a lot of Israelites tried to figure out, how do you deal with this whole process of Hellenization? In other words, if you want your own kids to get ahead in the world, in this time, and you’re going to have an elite family yourself in a town, in a city, it makes sense for your kids to get a Greek education. You want your sons, for example, to be able to speak, and read, and write Greek. In fact, there was conflict in Jerusalem at this time over how much Hellenization you should go alone with. Apparently, a majority of the priests and the lay nobility supported the Hellenizing group, that is the Israelites leaders who wanted to bring more Hellenization into Jerusalem itself. This high priest at this time named Jason, in 175 BC, he built a gymnasium in Jerusalem. Why did he build a gymnasium in Jerusalem? Well, if you’re going to have Greek education, you have to have a gymnasium. This Jason also founded a Greek polis, that is an Greek city structure, and Jason apparently paid Antiochus for the privilege of having Jerusalem recognized as a Greek city. This would have consolidated the power of those Israelite leaders who wanted to press Greek culture more, rather than those Israelite leaders who wanted to hold back on Greek culture. If you control the gymnasium, and you control the means of education, you actually control the citizenry, because you can’t become a citizen of a Greek polis, a Greek city, unless you yourself have Greek education, so sons would=sons of people would go to the gymnasium. Notice what this would do also, it would disenfranchise those leading families, who didn’t want to have their sons Hellenized. By holding the control of the eduction, you disenfranchise conservative Israelites, who are resisting this Greek influence.

After they ate off that tree, our behavior can go either way; but before they ate off that tree, the thing that "They" say makes us better than an animal, just trying to learn about that imprint?

Hi Rachel, what are your thoughts on this saying, the life force is holy, and the life force is in the blood; that which is holy is separate, what is holy is what is in Yahweh;s realm; the blood is the life, and that belongs to Yahweh. Trying to understand this "living being" before they ate off that tree? The breath of life part, a little help here, thanks.

What does logos have to do with this covenant? The Abrahamic covenant is a covenant with a single individual; Yahweh appears as a suzerain. Yahweh’s making a land grant to a favored subject, which is very often how these work. In general, in this kind of covenant, the parties to the oath would pass between the split carcass of a sacrificial animal, as if to say that they agree they will suffer the same fate as this animal, if they violate the covenant. Abraham cuts the sacrificial animals in two, the striking thing about the Abrahamic covenant is it’s unilateral character, only Yahweh seems to be obligated by the covenant, obligated to fulfill the promise that Yahweh made. Abraham doesn’t appear to have any obligation to return; and so in this case, it is the subject, Abraham, and not the suzerain, Yahweh, who is benefited by this covenant Their is a moral justification for this grant of land to Israel; Yahweh is the owner of the land, and so Yahweh is empowered to set conditions or residency requirements for those who would reside in it, like a landlord. The current inhabitants of the land are polluting it, filling it with bloodshed and idolatry; and when the land becomes so polluted, completely polluted, it will spew out it’s inhabitants. That process, Yahweh says, Isn’t complete; so Israel is going to have to wait. The lease Isn’t up yet, Yahweh is seeking replacement tenants who are going to follow the oral rules of residence that Yahweh has established for his land; it’s clear that Yahweh’s covenant with Israel is not due to any special merit of the Israelites or favoritism. Yahweh adds to the promises, that a line of kings will come forth from Abraham, and then, that Abraham and his male descendants be circumcised as a perpetual sign of the covenant. So here there is some obligation for Abraham; so circumcision is here infused with a new meaning: it becomes a sign of Yahweh’s eternal covenant with Abraham and his seed through Isaac.

Hi Roy, their seems to be a Greek veneer in your reasonings; kinda like a religious syncretism? A mixing together, of everybody's religion. Alexander the Great was good at that, mixing together god beliefs into one supreme god; kinda what you are doing?

Self-awareness, consciousness=the knowledge of ourselves; the thing that "They" say makes us better than an animal. Can we say, there's a sacred imprint of some kind that distinguishes the human creation from the other creatures? Enlivened by the breath of Yahweh, captures that paradoxical mix of sort of earthly and divine elements, dependence and freedom that maks the human as unique. Something alone that line?

Teach me more about your view on the mind tied to the soul, seems their something to that? I'm trying to understand how our behavior ties into the soul, that struggle? It seems on one of your threads, I can learn some cool stuff.

Yeshua was human and only human; but their are those who suck up to other teachings of man? Some Christians therefore had to make a decision, is Yeshua human and only human, or is Yeshua human and divine? Yeshua being human and divine, this is the take that most followers of Yeshua end up taking, although there were some followers of Yeshua who existed all the way into the second century who believed Yeshua was purely human. They tended to be Jewish followers of Yeshua, they still wanted to be complete monotheists and have only one Yahweh. So they said, No Yeshua can’t be divine. So some followers of Yeshua chose this route; human and only human. Others, chose this route; human and divine. Then, though one has to split this up. Was Yeshua always divine or did Yeshua become divine? If Yeshua became divine, Yeshua always was divine. If Yeshua became divine then when did Yeshua become divine? One has different choices again like at his birth, because then you have the songs that all the angels sing, and you take some of those songs at the beginning of Luke, and it sounds like they’re talking about Yeshua’s divine now. Or at his baptism; or at his resurrection. So, Christians again seem to have divided up. Does one take Yeshua as becoming divine at his birth, Yeshua’s baptism, or Yeshua’s resurrection? We’ve seen other Christians say, no Yeshua always was divine, but even then they split up into different choices too, because some of them said Yeshua was divine but also fully human, so Yeshua was both divine but also fleshly; a letter in the new testament insisting that you can’t have Yeshua as divine without also having him as come in the flesh. Apparently some people in the Johannine community were claiming that Yeshua was fully divine, but not fleshly. Then you have, so this became that position, flesh and divine; that is, what came to be a heresy, remember, in the second century there was no organized church that could be able to declare what counted as orthodoxy and heresy. But this idea was Yeshua was not fully flesh, Yeshua was so divine, Yeshua was Yahweh, so that when Yeshua walked along on the wet sand on the beach, Yeshua’s feet didn’t leave footprints, that’s how divine Yeshua was. Yeshua didn’t have any weight about him; Yeshua was not even fully flesh. Notice all of these are choices that followers of Yeshua had to make in the decades following his death. Some of them took the human route, some of them took the human and divine route, some of them believed that Yeshua became divine, and the list goes on?