Communion?

[simchat_torah]

The Jesus movement of the 70s was a christian movement, many Jewish people came to the Lord and encouraged messianic Judaism. There is the Azusa Street Revival, the Moravian Revival, Charles Finney, John Wesley, George Whitfield, John G Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, John Hyde, Jonathon Edwards, Ludwig Van Zinzendorf, DL Moody, William and Catherine Booth, and many other christian pioneers with good fruit.

We have gone through this before... I want to desperate ask you your qualifications of "good fruit", but my better judgement tells me to ask you to make a new thread...

 

[simchat_torah]

and a big thanks to Hix for this pm (I don't think he minds if I copy/paste this tidbit):

As for the chicken, there is no circling of a chicken around the head, the only place ive read of such was on Messiah Truth and it was for a JOKE, it was saying that IF someone swung a chicken round their head it would be a mock fulfillment of a messianic prophecy. But no such practise exists (as Moshe Shulman points out)

Shalom,
yafet

 

[ShirChadash]

Yohannon 8:43...

"Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.. "

Charlesworth:

"Can there have been no relationships between the Essenes [Enochian sectarians] and the Palestinian Jesus Movement when both emphasized the sinfulness of all humanity and the need for God's grace, the eschatological time, the establishment of the New Covenant according to Jeremiah 31, the presence and power of Satan and the demons, and the clarion call of Isaiah 40:3?

"Is it not clear that both groups emphasized essentially the same hermeneutical principle: all Scripture and prophecy pointed to the present - the endtime - and directly and especially to their own special group? Did not both groups, mutatis mutandis, exhort a sharing of possessions? Has it not become palpable lately that both groups were products, and to a certain extent examples, of Jewish apocalypticism? Do not both groups, and only they, stress the living presence of 'the Holy Spirit' in their community?"
- James H. Charlesworth, "Rethinking Jesus' Jewishness"

Very interesting, Toney. Also I have been considering where Yeshua mentions Himself that the Father says He desires not sacrifices (ack, I could find the Gospel account, but you all know to which I am referring, I just read it again yesterday in fleshing these things out...). Perhaps when saying this He was acknowledging awareness and even validation of the Essenes' (alternate) practice of not having a lamb because the Father doesn't prefer sacrifices...? Also... here's something I am pondering which has to do with the bolded portion above in your quote there: "All the prophets prophesied only for the days of the Messiah" Berakoth 34b You know how some people use the comment that the law and prophets were until John (and try to twist it to mean then that the TeNaK is no longer in force... well it appears to me to mean that, actually, the purpose of the Law and prophets was to indicate forward to Messiah... and up to John, who heralded Messiah. anyway -- rabbit trail of my own, sorry it just fit with your quote up there)

 

[simchat_torah]

Now, JH, I ask... no... I demand that you start a seperate thread, for we are going way off the beaten path at this point.

-Yafet

 

[koilias]

"Is it not clear that both groups emphasized essentially the same hermeneutical principle: all Scripture and prophecy pointed to the present - the endtime - and directly and especially to their own special group? Did not both groups, mutatis mutandis, exhort a sharing of possessions? Has it not become palpable lately that both groups were products, and to a certain extent examples, of Jewish apocalypticism? Do not both groups, and only they, stress the living presence of 'the Holy Spirit' in their community?"
- James H. Charlesworth, "Rethinking Jesus' Jewishness"

The "Palestinian Jesus movement" as Charlesworth calls it, reflects the mainstream apocalypticism of its time, it was Hasidic. The values it shared are those typical of Hasidism as a whole. Essenes borrowed from it heavily, especially drawing from Enochic literature, but the important distinction is that they turned their backs to the Temple. The Essenes are a priestly off-shoot of this Hasidic movement.

 

[Toney]

Well, we've thrown out the lamb with the temple and roasted the circling :topic: chicken.

My pet theory of the day is taking water and breaking up on the rocks .

But, thank G-d , we ain't like them pagans .

Time for X-Box Super-Tiger Golf . Gotta think some .

Shalom,

 

[ShirChadash]

Well, we've thrown out the lamb with the temple and roasted the circling :topic: chicken.

roflol!

 

[Hix]

Time for X-Box Super-Tiger Golf . Gotta think some .

Shalom,

Oh no, not ANOTHER X-Box fan? Yafet will be happy knowing hes not the only one in the world now

Oh wait, Im going off topic....what were we talking about again?

Shalom and G-d bless
~Hix~

 

[iitb]

Okay, I think I have this all back in order. I removed some off topic stuff, and will probably make the Essene discussion it's own thread sometime later.

 

[ShirChadash]

Well, I admit your theory is quite novel, and I certainly would not have put it past Yeshua to have done such a thing. If he did, then he would have been taking the Halakha of the Essenes quite light-heartedly, especially if he was, if my teacher's research is correct, eating lamb! An Essene would not have pulled it off, but maybe an ex-Essene.

Okay are you getting my point that it could have just as easily simply been a tradition to some former or marginal Essenes that was still being practiced to have a Haggadah-telling according to the Essenic calendar? We know full well that no one coming to faith in YHVH Elohim is able to take on the whole of the true faith and leave off every single tradition and vestige of his old faith immediately. It's a learning process... a process of laying aside that which does not conform to the Truth of the Word and to the Truth of G-d's Torah teachings and expectations. A few things go... a few more old things go next year... in time, hopefully, most of them go. But some traditions are, unquestionably, deeply ingrained and those that do not honor G-d sometimes take a tremendous amount of scrutiny and struggling through before they are lain aside.

And while you posit that He would be taking the halacha of the Essenes lightly -- I posit He never intended to necessarily validate that halacha in the first place, and also instead of taking the halacha lightly, He would rather have been merely acknowledging the practice of some of His followers and used it for His own purposes. I should think that it would have been a tremendous blessing (and not disrespect) to have Messiah come and spend time with me in my home, take advantage of my hospitality, and partake of my meal even IF it wasn't in line with the Pharisaic temple-reckoning of Pesach, and use my meal to teach Truth about Himself.

Why is it so hard to believe that Yeshua knew that a man carrying a water jar (shown fairly effectively to be Essene, or at least of some Essenic influence as men didn't typically do such women's work but it was commonplace among the Essenes), who believes in Him and is familiar with His followers (we never hear of any resistance or even questioning by the man, asking "Who is 'the Master' of whom you speak?" to the disciples -- he clearly knew that it was Yeshua they referred to), and who would be preparing for a Pesach meal that evening (Tuesday evening, in fact the beginning of Wednesday which was the preparation day for The Pesach according to Temple-reckoning), according to his tradition (either an Essenic tradition, or as Toney pointed out I think, as some other part of a two-day Pesach from diaspora or something similar) and would take His disciples to his home where they were to eat that meal as His last?

And then He went onward from that point to be crucified at the same time as the lambs for THE Pesach, according to Temple-reckoning, were slaughtered... Wednesday afternoon for the Pesach beginning Wednesday evening (actual Thursday), and so on.

 

[koilias]

Why is it so hard to believe that Yeshua knew that a man carrying a water jar

Zemmi, I invite you to read this article, which addresses that theory:

http://www.jerusalemperspective.com/column/DisplayColumn.asp?ID=1733

It also outlines the general case for the unlikelyhood of the Essene passover.

I do not find your theory hard to accept. Rather too easy to accept! One must simply examine all sides of the evidence, eh? I find no problem with you accepting the theory, but personally, accepting the Essene calendar to me means putting an insurmountable distance between us and living Jewish tradition.

 

[ShirChadash]

Thanks, I'll read the article Koilias



And, once again, I am not endorsing the Essene calendar and I am not even saying Yeshua did... I'm saying He used it to His own purposes.

 

[Toney]

...either an Essenic tradition, or as Toney pointed out I think, as some other part of a two-day Pesach from diaspora or something similar and would take His disciples to his home where they were to eat that meal as His last?

Zemirah,

I am 20 under with 18 left to play .

Here is some documentation for the two-calendar solution that does not depend upon Essenic influence. I am posting it for the benefit of others who may wish to refer to it, even Google-ize it.

1. "The contemporaries of Jesus celebrated the passover meal on two successive days because the Sadducees and the Pharisees dated the beginning of Nisan differently." Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, p. 23, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966).

2. "In Hasmonean and Herodian times the Sadducees and Boethusians each had their own calendar as did -- subsequently in Talmudic and post-Talmudic periods -- the Karaites and other less well-known sects." 'Calendar', Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 5, p. 50-51.

3. ".... in those times the month of Nissan might have been defective or the reason was because the Karaites did not exactly follow the ruling of the Rabbanite calendar." Edgar Frank, Talmudic and Rabbinical Chronology: The Systems of Counting Years In Jewish Literature, p. 42.

I also found four authors with fourteen differing opinions on significant similiarities between Essenism and Karaism, which were separated by a millennium but that's another thread.

 

[ShirChadash]

Toney, you are one busy dude! Fascinating. Sooner or later we have to come to a place where my teeny widdle brain gets a grip on this, good.

 

[Toney]

"I believe in being open-minded... but not so open-minded my brains fall out." (I saw that somewhere.)

My teeny widdle brain is done. Koilias puts up Flusser, I put up Pixner. No. I am not going to put up Pixner. Where's my putter?

 

[ShirChadash]

I think I'll join you.

~Z~ goes searching for her putt-putt putter.

 

[simchat_torah]

For those who are interested in such things, a link to a pagan website where they believe they are the originators of communion:
http://realmagick.com/articles/51/1551.html

As well, the general idea of a "sacred meal" in various pagan cultures consisting of the g-ds flesh never really sunk in for some time. It wasn't until I was open to considering such commonalities that it hit me like a freight train.

The Mysteries Mithras' faithful celebrated a sacred meal. So did followers of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and other Pagan Gods of the Mystery Religions. New members of the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris completed their initiation with a sacramental meal.

http://www.entheology.org/POCM/pagan_origins_sacred_meal.html