Corroborating Genesis, Book of Jasher, and Stephen's Speech

ChetSinger said:

The conclusion of various church fathers is that in Genesis 18 Abraham is meeting with God in the flesh. For example, here's Justin Martyr:



There are good reasons for this. One is that Genesis states that after the men left to go to Sodom, "Abraham still stood before YHWH". And when the men arrived at Sodom, there were only two instead of three. The implication was obvious to the church fathers: YHWH was the third man.

All that is scrubbed clean in the Jasher account. It has the marks of tampering by anti-Christian Jews who wanted to prevent the third man from being identified as the pre-incarnate Christ.

Your forum name is "yeshuasavedme". That's a nice name. How do you feel about Yeshua being scrubbed out of one of his most famous OT passages? Just how important is the "Book of Jasher" to you?

This leads me to a question: how old is the oldest manuscript of the "Book of Jasher" currently in our possession? I'm going to guess it's well after the Hadrianic war. Am I right?

Click to expand...

Silly, He was not scrubbed out! His ministering angels appear and speak on His behalf, and one fears them, for YHWH's Name is in them.....
Do you know that the "angel of the Face"," Penuel" in Enoch is the Angel who led Israel out of Egypt? 'Splain that....His ministering angels speak for Him, in His name, by His authority.
So it is in Jasher, and so it is in Genesis -and Zechariah, and elsewhere.

Jasher 18:4 And the Lord appeared to him in the plain of Mamre, and sent three of his ministering angels to visit him, and he was sitting at the door of the tent, and he lifted his eyes and saw, and lo three men were coming from a distance, and he rose up and ran to meet them, and he bowed down to them and brought them into his house.

nd he said to them, If now I have found favor in your sight, turn in and eat a morsel of bread; and he pressed them, and they turned in and he gave them water and they washed their feet, and he placed them under a tree at the door of the tent.
And Abraham ran and took a calf, tender and good, and he hastened to kill it, and gave it to his servant Eliezer to dress.

And Abraham came to Sarah into the tent, and he said to her, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it and make cakes to cover the pot containing the meat, and she did so.
And Abraham hastened and brought before them butter and milk, beef and mutton, and gave it before them to eat before the flesh of the calf was sufficiently done, and they did eat.

And when they had done eating one of them said to him, I will return to thee according to the time of life, and Sarah thy wife shall have a son.

Genesis 18:1
Now the LORD appeared to him by the *oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.
And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw [them], he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,
and said, "*My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not *pass Your servant by.
"Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and *rest yourselves under the tree;
And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.
So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, "*Quickly, prepare three *measures of fine flour, knead it and make bread cakes."
Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a tender and *choice calf and gave it to the servant, and he hurried to prepare it.
He took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed it before them; and he was standing by them under the tree *as they ate.

And they said unto him, Where [is] Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.
He said, "I will surely return to you *at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him....

Then the men rose up from there, and looked down toward Sodom; and Abraham was walking with them to send them off.
The LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,...

Click to expand...

Look at the passages. -So where is the blasphemy????
Shame on you for making up something by your own hard heart that is not there.

On ages of copies:
do you want to go there? Do you know how old the copies of the Tenach are, which are written in Hebrew that we have?
Not so very old, are they? Where is the oldest Torah copy -not the original, for we have none -but where is the oldest Torah copy?

There are no original Torah manuscripts available.
In the middle ages, some Jewish scholars put together the Masoretic text.
Is the copy of the Book of Jasher which was translated older than their newly compiled Masoretic texts?
Is this the way to determine Truth? to see who has the oldest copies of a manuscript? If so, then be advised you lose the argument as to age of copies making authentic the Hebrew Tenach, do you not?

here is a great difference of opinion as to when the Masoretic Text was written, but it was probably accomplished in the 10th -11th century. Several editions existed, varying considerably, but the received and authoritative text is that of Jacob ben-chayim ibn Adonijah, who carefully sifted and arranged the previous works on the subject. It was published in 1524.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/Masoretic-Text.html#ixzz2OxGuz2dy
​

Click to expand...

ChetSinger said:

We have Hebrew OT texts that are 2,000 years old, found in the caves at Qumran. And we have NT texts that are almost that old. We have over 5,000 NT manuscripts that are written in the original Greek.

In contrast, how many and how old are the "Book of Jasher" manuscripts in our possession? Who, anywhere, defends it as having the same contents as the one mentioned in the Bible?

Click to expand...

Wrong. Isaiah was found about intact -if I remember correctly -and the copy dates to about 300 BC, if I remember correctly, which is the same date given to the copies of Enoch manuscripts discovered there.
We are talking about more than one book, Isaiah....
So where are the oldest Torah manuscript copies? What is their date?

Calminian said:

I had a feeling you were going to dig in. Stubbornness and theology don't mix. Sometimes you just have to be humble and listen.

You'll notice at the conclusion of that conversation, the Torah says this.

Gen. 17:22 When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him. ​

The word there is Elohiym. He is said have gone "up" from him (alah) —to ascend or to rise.

This was no mere representation. Only two angels went to Sodom. The other (YHWH Elohiym) ascended back to the heavens. Like it or lump it, Jasher is wrong in this instance. You have to pick which text will be your authority.

Click to expand...

Calminian, you remind me of one of my grandchildren, actually, I had a son you remind me of, but he is older now, than you, and probably has learned a bit more, now. He was an excellent debater, and did win in contests in college, but he developed his skills trying to argue me down, when he was a young upstart who was intelligent, but not so wise yet.
May you learn, also, and gain wisdom.
Elohym also covers the angels who are called elohym in many places, and sons of Elohym.
Now in Torah, in Genesis 19, the LORD on earth rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the LORD in heaven -'splain that.

Gen 19:24 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
Do you know the authority of ministering angels to speak for and act for YHWH? -How about the Angel of the Bush, and the Angel of the Face/Presence of YHWH who followed Israel?
How about the angel who ascended in the fire of sacrifice when the father and mother of Samson -to be- ascended into heaven in the flame? -Was He the LORD pre-incarnate, or was he a ministering angel? If He's in flesh, how is He not come incarnate -in flesh- until the body was prepared int he womb?

If He is YHWH on the throne in Isaiah 6 -as John says He was, in chapter 12, and being worshiped by angels and who do not look upon His face, then how is He come down from heaven to look at the tower of Bab-El to see if it is as reported????, in Genesis 11, or is it that He is present in His ministering angels who go down in His name? H-M-M?

Be honest now, and stop playing games that you would not play with the Tenach, but want to inconsistently play with The Upright Record.

Genesis 11:5-9
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

In Jasher we learn that the LORD used 70 angels who stood before Him to confound the speech and overthrow the tower.


How about in Zechariah, was the angel of the LORD the LORD, or a ministering angel speaking for the LORD? The Word reports: You decide

Zechariah 2

Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. 2 So I said, “Where are you going?”
And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.”
3 And there was the angel who talked with me, going out; and another angel was coming out to meet him, 4 who said to him, “Run, speak to this young man, saying: ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it. 5 For I,’ says the Lord, ‘will be a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.’”


The Coming Branch

Zech 3:6 Then the Angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying, 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:
‘If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here.

8 ‘Hear, O Joshua, the high priest,
You and your companions who sit before you,
For they are a wondrous sign;
For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
9 For behold, the stone
That I have laid before Joshua:
Upon the stone are seven eyes.
Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’
Says the Lord of hosts,
‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
10 In that day,’ says the Lord of hosts,
‘Everyone will invite his neighbor
Under his vine and under his fig tree.’”



How about Moses being "God to Aaron"? was Moses God, or was Moses the "Mouth of God" speaking to Aaron?



You guys remind me of those pharisees who followed Jesus so as to trip Him up by a word. You want to trip up the Book of Jasher by a word, but it never ever contradicts Torah, and it compliments and enhances the historical understanding of the times.

ChetSinger said:

While we don't have entire copies of them, we have pieces of every book except Esther, I think. Is Jasher there?

Click to expand...

I have three or four books with the translated DSS and there is hardly a Book of the Tenach among them that has enough surviving to say that it is actually what the Masoretic says -and more copies of fragments that show the Masoretic was not the Text of antiquity, too! -and more fragments that are from more than the books of the Tenach, too. And of course no Jasher.
Who would want to keep Jasher around when they have and put so much blind faith in the Book of Jubilees, which the Essenes did [and one of their early Judaisers most likely wrote it, also], but Jubilees contradicts the Gospel, the Torah, Enoch, and Jasher, but they were too blind to see that they contradicted the Gospel message in the Torah and in Enoch or else they would have made some way to have their cake and eat it too Jubilees is part truth, part myth, and part Judaising Law, with much myth on the Law.

However, Isaiah is about -or more complete [it's been a long time since I read it in the DSS Scroll copies], and nearly word for word with what we have in the Masoretic.

ChetSinger said:

I didn't know that. That's interesting, but I'm unswayed. We know what the Jews considered worthy enough to consider as scripture, and what they didn't. And we copied them, which makes sense to me because observant Jews were the first Christians.

Click to expand...

The Observant Jews who were the First Christians used Jasher -one of the writings on parchment in Paul's collection, no doubt, for Paul quotes heavily from it, as well as from Enoch; and no, the name Jasher is not what it was called - and they used Enoch. The Jews who made a canon list up after Jesus ascended were the Christ deniers, and those deniers of Christ were followed by the Roman Church in the fourth century, when they made a list. But not all Christian Churches followed Rome -nor do they still.

ChetSinger said:

Well, I'll agree to disagree. This is your thread so I'll bow out. As Christians, I'm sure we agree much more than we disagree. So, cheers and best wishes.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input...it keeps me sharper as I age, and I enjoy it....

pshun2404 said:

So ChetSinger,
Can you be consistent in your conclusions and apply them to Torah and to the prophets, when one points out that the LORD Himself, YHWH of hosts, was whom Jacob wrestled with in Genesis 32, who invoked His own formerly secret [New Man -to come] name over Jacob.
Now Torah says Jacob wrestled with a man/ish.
Torah says the ish was an angel of the LORD (no the Angel of the LORD, Malach-YHVH).

Jacob said that He had seen the face of God, and lived, and named that place "Penuel/Face of God.

Now Hosea 12:3 says that the One whom Jacob wrestled with was none other than YHWH of hosts.
'Splain that one and be consistent.

Sure. YHVH is the Father, and YHVH is the Son, and YHVH is the Holy Spirit. Jesus says no one has ever seen the Father or heard His voice at any time. That is because the YHVH who is seen and heard in the OT is the Word (the Son) not the Father. The Targumim all say this is the Memra (the Greek wword closest is Logos). He is YHVH manifest or personified. For example, when the Angel of the LORD appears to Hagar, it is YHVH. The man who appears to Manoah and his wife is YHVH. In Exodus 3, the Angel of the LORD that speaks to Moses from the burning bush (probably as the Shekinah) identifies Himself later as the God of Moses fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and says to call Him “He who is” translated “I AM”. Whenever God is “with us” it is the Son not the Father. The Word is a hypostasis of YHVH. He appears to men all throughout the Law and the Prophets (it is not His essence we see or we would be consumed but He comes in the form of His similitude, His fellow, etc., as well as the Shekinah.

Now just for conversation, look at Isaiah 48. YHVH is speaking and tells the prophet that it is He who dpread out the heavens and is the ET (the Aleph-Tav) the beginning and the end and then in verse 16 says “and the Lord of Hosts has sent me with His Spirit. So we have YHVH who sends YHVH who is sent “with His Spirit”. And we know the Spirit is the Lord as well so there you have it.

In the Targum Jonathan on Genesis 19:24 Jonathan writes, “and the Memra (Word) of YHVH caused to descend upon the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the YHVH in heaven“.

On Exodus 24:1, The Targum Jonathan understands the Scripture to be saying, “the Word of YHVH said to Moses, come up to YHVH“, and just previously in 20:1, he said, “and the Word of the LORD spoke all these glorious words“!

Targum Onkelos renders Genesis 15:6 as, “and Abraham trusted in the Word of YHVH, and He counted it to him for righteousness“, while the Jerusalem Targum on Genesis 22:14 says, “and Abraham worshipped and prayed in the name of the Word of YHVH and said, You are the YHVH who does see, but You cannot be seen“. In Genesis 16:3 he has Hagar praying “in the name of the Word of YHVH“, as if God had made Himself seeable, and yet she was not consumed!

And so on according to the pre-Christian traditions which culminated in their works. The examples are many.

In His love
Paul

Click to expand...

So are all ministering spirits YHWH, in your view?
Everytime the angels appear with a message from YHWH, are saying they are YHWH?

pshun2404 said:

So are all ministering spirits YHWH, in your view?
Everytime the angels appear with a message from YHWH, are saying they are YHWH?

Absolutely not just this one particular being (the Angel of the LORD, who the Jews know as the Angel of His Presence, or the Angel of His Face) called the Malach-YHVH in the Hebrew. "THE" Angel of the LORD is not the same as "an" angel of the Lord (referring to arch-angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, etc.,). The Angel of the LORD is a theophany (some would say a Christophany is more specific).

Paul

Click to expand...

How many times is the article "The" in the Hebrew in relation to angels, or is that added by the translators? -I think that it is added by the translators.

In Enoch, one of the four presences on the four sides of the throne is the angel of the face/presence. Three of them have the same names as three of the seven Watcher archangels -they are not Watcher angels, but different.
One of them, Phanuel, was with the Children of Israel in the wilderness. Jacob named the place He wrestled with the angel "Phanuel" -English spellings diff, but the root etymons are the same.



Enoch 40:
The Four Presences
2And on the four sides of the Lord of Spirits I saw four presences, different from those that sleep not, and I learnt their names: for the angel that went with me made known to me their names, and showed me all the hidden things.
3And I heard the voices of those four presences as they uttered praises before the Lord of glory.
4The first voice blesses the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.
5And the second voice I heard blessing the Elect One and the elect ones who hang upon the Lord of Spirits.
6And the third voice I heard pray and intercede for those who dwell on the earth and supplicate in the name of the Lord of Spirits.
7And I heard the fourth voice fending off the satans and forbidding them to come before the Lord of Spirits to accuse them who dwell on the earth.
8After that I asked the angel of peace who went with me, who showed me everything that is hidden: "Who are these four presences which I have seen and whose words I have heard and written down?"
9And he said to me: "This first is Michael, the merciful and long-suffering: and the second, who is set over all the diseases and all the wounds of the children of men, is Raphael: and the third, who is set over all the powers, is Gabriel: and the fourth, who is set over the repentance unto hope of those who inherit eternal life, is named Phanuel."
10And these are the four angels of the Lord of Spirits and the four voices I heard in those days.

He was with the Children of Israel in the wilderness:
Isa 63:9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, And the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them All the days of old.
Blue Letter Bible - Lexicon

I think to try to get to the bottom of when angels come in power and authority on behalf of YHWH and speak for Him and act for Him and just when the LORD Himself is present by His Anointed Presence would be a study above and beyond us, before we get to heaven and can learn all the secret things.

Exd 23:20-23
Behold, I send an Angel/מלאך mal'ak פנים paniym before thee?, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name [is] in him.
"But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
"For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.