| The Legacy of Patriarch Abraham On Authentic and Imagined Monotheism. Part 1: Christianity Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) The Old Testament Trinity - The hospitality of Abraham Monotheism is not only the oldest but also the original form of religion. This is recognized both by Christian theologians as well as by many historians of religion. In the first chapter of the book of Genesis, only one God is mentioned. There are no references to any other " gods " : " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth " (Gen. 1:1); " And the Lord said... " (Gen. 6:3); " And God saw... " (Gen. 6:5); " Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he " (Gen. 6:22). The retreat from monotheism took place after the events of the tower of Babel. The fallen nature of man was increasingly rooted in sin. Gradually, the notion of God became obscure. In human life, sensual and carnal inclinations prevailed. The deep-seated habit of attaching value only to that which is entirely visible and tangible, as well as a vital dependence on the natural environment and a fear of the natural elements, led people to deify the sun, moon, stars, sea, rivers, mountains, animals, plants, and people (rulers and heroes). As the Holy Apostle Paul writes, idolaters " changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator " (Rom. 1:25). At that time, pagan nonbelief was ubiquitous. It had even infected those who descended from Patriarch Abraham. The Lord speaks through Joshua to the Jews: " our fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods " (Josh. 24:2). God called upon Abraham and took him from the land of his ancestors in order to keep intact true veneration of the Divine, by which Abraham differed from his other contemporaries: " And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan " (Josh. 24:3). |
| 2 . Starting in 1925, more than 4000 tablets, dating from 1500–1400 B.C., have been found in the town of Nuzi, near ancient Ninevah in Iraq. 3 . In 1929 tablets were found at Ugarit and Ras Shamra on the Syrian north coast. These tablets are from the 14th and 13th centuries B.C., the very age of Moses. The language corresponds closely to the Hebrew poetic language from the Torah-Old Testament, such as the Song of Miriam from Exodus 15:20, and the song of Deborah, found in Judges 5 (12th century B.C.). 4 . In 1933 excavations were started at Mari on the Middle Euphrates in Syria. Three years later thousands of cuneiform tablets were found which dated from 1700 B.C. 5 . In 1964 the ruins of Ebla were discovered in Northern Syria. By 1974, more than 17,000 clay tablets written in 2200 B.C. had been found. 6 . Finally, I myself, sat at the base of an Egyptian obelisk at the place de la Concorde while in Paris in 1961, the sides of which are covered with hieroglyphics from the time of Ramses II. As early as 1938, without the later finds, W. F. Albright, discussing the various writing systems that existed in the ancient Orient during pre-Mosaic patriarchal times, could write, «In this connection it may be said that writing was well known in Palestine and Syria throughout the Patriarchal Age (Middle Bronze, 2100–1500 B.C.). No fewer than five scripts are known to have been in use: (1) Egyptian hieroglyphs, used for personal and place names by the Canaanites; (2) Accadian Cuneiform; (3) the hieroglyphiform syllabary of Phoenicia; (4) the linear alphabet of Sinai; and (5) the cuneiform alphabet of Ugarit which was discovered in 1929.» 80 More evidence that demands a verdict Evidence That Demands a Verdict Summarized from More Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell, Campus Crusade for Christ, San Bernadino, CA. 1975. This book and his first volume, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, are full of quotations indicating the beliefs of the critics, followed by archaeological evidence proving that the critics and their «documentary hypothesis» are wrong, and that the Torah and Gospel are trustworthy and reliable. They have very complete bibliographies and should be read by anyone interested in this problem. |
| 438 Deut, XXVIII. 56, 57. «The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee.» See all the preceding verses, 52 seq. Comp. Lam. II. 11; IV. 3, 10, 11 . Ezek. V. 9, 13, 16, 17 . These predictions were, indeed, dreadfully fulfilled to the very letter! 441 There is a considerable omission here in our Syriac text of Josephus: but, as the matter omitted could have but little reference to the objects had in view by Eusebius; there is no reason to suppose, the text of Josephus himself to be redundant on this account. 442 The Syriac is worded rather extraordinarily here; which I notice for the mere sake of the Student. It stands thus: [Syriac]. Lit, For they destroyed the city, and forced the Romans, when they were unwilling, to be recorded (as having taken part) in a sad victory. 443 «The times of the Gentiles» must, I think, mean those times previously spoken of in the Scriptures, during which the Gentiles should retain their ancient state and power. That is, during the last part of Daniel " s fourth monarchy, in which it is foretold they should have the rule. After this, during the fifth kingdom the saints are to have the rule, these therefore, must be their times, not, scripturally speaking, «the times of the Gentiles.» Our author is therefore, wrong in this place. See the Introduction to his work. He is not the only one who has taken it in this sense, as may be seen by referring to Poolés Synopsis, &c. 445 The places had here in view are Deut. XI. 29; XXVII. 4 . seq. Josh, VIII. 30. seq. The Samaritans, it appears, have introduced a large number of spurious readings into the Text of their edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, and, among others, one ascribing a higher degree of honour to mount Gerizim, than to Hebal: for which Dr Kennicott, some years ago, considered it his duty to contend. See my Prolegomena to Mr Bagster " s Polyglott Bible, Prolog, II. sect. I. XXI. seq. where I have shewn that much relating to this controversy had not been duly understood. |
| 49 . God is infinitely above all beings, whether participant or participable. For whatever belongs to the category of being is a work of God, even though participant beings had a temporal origin, whereas participable beings were implanted by grace among things that come into existence in time. In this way participable beings are a kind of innate power clearly proclaiming God’s presence in all things. 50 . All immortal things and immortality itself, all living things and life itself, all holy things and holiness itself, all good things and goodness itself, all blessings and blessedness itself, all beings and being itself are manifestly works of God. Some things began to be in time, for they have not always existed. Others did not begin to be in time, for goodness, blessedness, holiness and immortality have always existed. Those things which began in time exist and are said to exist by participation in the things which did not begin in time. For God is the creator of all life, immortality, holiness and goodness ; and He transcends the being of all intelligible and describable beings. 51 . The sixth day of creation, according to Scripture, represents the completion of the beings that are subject to nature. The seventh day marks the limit of the flow of temporal existence. The eighth day betokens the quality of that state which is beyond nature and time. 52 . He who observes the sixth day only according to the Law, fleeing the active, soul-afflicting domination of the passions, passes fearlessly through the sea to the desert (cf. Exod. 16: 1): his sabbath consists simply of rest from the passions. But when he has crossed the Jordan (cf. Josh. 3: 17) and has left behind this state of simply resting from the passions, he enters into possession of the virtues. 53 . He who observes the sixth day according to the Gospel, having already put to death the first impulses of sin, through cultivating the virtues attains a state of dispassion which, like a desert, is bare of all evil: his sabbath is a rest of his intellect even from the merest images suggested by the passions. But when he lus crossed the Jordan he passes over into the land of spiritual knowledge, where the intellect, the temple mystically built by peace, becomes in spirit the dwelling-place of God. |
| 723 City of God 19.15. 724 9:26–29 Noah Blesses Two Sons Noah Blesses Shem and Japheth. Ephrem the Syrian: After Ham had been cursed through his one son, Noah blessed Shem and Japheth and said, “May God increase Japheth, and may he dwell in the tent of Shem, and let Canaan be their slave,” Japheth increased and became powerful in his inheritance in the north and in the west. And God dwelt in the tent of Abraham, the descendant of Shem, and Canaan became their slave when in the days of Joshua son of Nun, the Israelites destroyed the dwelling places of Canaan and pressed their leaders into bondage.725 Commentary on Genesis 7.4.1. 726 10:1–32 THE DESCENDANTS OF JAPHETH, HAM AND SHEM 1These are the generations of the sons of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; sons were born to them after the flood. 2The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog. Madai, Javan,+ Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Tagarmah. 4The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarsbish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5From these the coastland peoples spread. These are the sons of Japheth in their lands, each with his own language, by their families, in their nations.# 6The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt,§ Put, and Canaan. 7The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8Cush became the father of Nimrod: he was the first on earth to be a mighty# man. 9He was a hunter the Lord: therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a hunter the Lord.” 10The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them++ in the 718 Jer 38 :30LXX. 719 Ezek 18:20 . 720 Deut 2:16 . 721 FC 82:212–13. 722 FC 65:243. 723 Thus slavery is not natural to the human condition but comes about only under sinful conditions. 724 FC 725 Josh 17:13. 726 FC 91:146. land of Sbinar. 11From that land he went into Assyria,## and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir,§§ Calah, and 12Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. 13Egypt§ became the father Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naph-tuhim, 14Pathrusim, Casluhim (whence came the Philistines), and Caphtorim. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Bitten by Pascha Pravmir.com team 25 May 2019 by Josh Lowery My period of Orthodox inquiry began around the summer of 2010, but it wasn’t until February of 2014 that my wife and I uprooted from our Evangelical church home and started attending at an Orthodox parish. That church was a very small (at the time) parish in a northern suburb of Dallas, TX, in the OCA archdiocese. My family realized after 3-4 weeks attending there that it was the wrong place for us. At the time, they were meeting in a small trailer. It was too cramped, nothing really for the kids educationally, and it had the feel of a parish in decline. While I’m glad St. Sava’s has rebounded since those days (they have a beautiful new house of worship), I’m also glad about where circumstances took us in that season. We then transferred our trial run to Holy Trinity, the big Greek parish in town. My wife sent me alone that first week, weary of the frustrating few Sundays that had preceded. That first Sunday at Holy Trinity happened to be the Sunday of Orthodoxy, which was quite the full-throated Orthodox experience for a guy who had merely romanced about Orthodoxy the four years prior. All things considered, it was a bright and hopeful encounter that I enthusiastically shared the details of with my wife when I got home that day. She was skeptical, but upon learning the following week that the church had a designated cry room for moms and babies with its own live video feed of the liturgy pumping in, she was on board again. During the ensuing 5-6 weeks, we were adamant with our Evangelical friends and family that this was just a “season of discovery”. In fact, we actively prayed during that time that God would lead us away from Orthodoxy if it wasn’t His desire that we convert. That being said, I should mention that we didn’t actually view the Lenten period explicitly as our experimental period. We had a much longer trial phase in mind. Knowing that the Orthodox Church typically doesn’t receive new catechumens until the Saturday before Holy Week, we had envisioned giving the entire liturgical year its due before deciding absolutely the Orthodox Church was where we belonged. |
| All the Ranks of the Heavenly Powers are called angels, although each has its own name and position by virtue of their service. The Lord reveals His will to the highest ranks of the angels, and they in turn inform the others. Over all the Nine Ranks, the Lord appointed the Holy Archangel Michael (his name in Hebrew means “who is like unto God”), the faithful servitor of God, as Chief Commander. He cast down from Heaven the arrogantly proud Lucifer and the other fallen spirits when they rebelled against God. Michael summoned the ranks of angels and cried out, “Let us attend! Let us stand aright before our Creator and do not consider doing what is displeasing unto God!” According to Church Tradition, and in the church services to the Archangel Michael, he participated in many other Old Testament events. During the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt he went before them in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Through him the power of the Lord was made manifest, annihilating the Egyptians and Pharaoh who were in pursuit of the Israelites. The Archangel Michael defended Israel in all its misfortunes. He appeared to Joshua Son of Navi and revealed the will of the Lord at the taking of Jericho (Josh 5:13-16). The power of the great Chief Commander of God was manifest in the annihilation of the 185 thousand soldiers of the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib (4/2 Kings 19:35); also in the smiting of the impious leader Heliodorus (2 Macc. 3: 24-26); and in the protection of the Three Holy Youths: Ananias, Azarias and Misail, thrown into the fiery furnace for their refusal to worship an idol (Dan 3:22-25). Through the will of God, the Chief Commander Michael transported the Prophet Habbakuk (December 2) from Judea to Babylon, to give food to Daniel in the lions’ den (Dan. 14:33-37). The Archangel Michael disputed with the devil over the body of the holy Prophet Moses (Jude 1:9). The holy Archangel Michael showed his power when he miraculously saved a young man, cast into the sea by robbers with a stone about his neck on the shores of Mt Athos. This story is found in the Athonite Paterikon, and in the Life of St Neophytus of Docheiariou (November 9). |
| American history contains a good example of how understanding of the Bible depends on people and how it can influence those people. Protestants felt in America like “the New Israel”. They tried to find places in the Bible which would speak about them. And finally Catholic Europe became gentile Egypt, Pope – a pharaoh, Luther – Moses. Just like Jews were oppressed in Egypt, protestants went through hatred from European catholics. And America seemed to be the Promised Land. They saw a new Canaan in America. There were gentiles living in the ancient Canaan. And there were gentiles living in America. What happened to Philistines, Canaanites and other worshipers of Baal who refused to give up their land? What did the Lord tell Moses and Joshua to do to gentiles to whose land He brought them? “And Joshua at that time turned back, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword […] And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe: and he burnt Hazor with fire. And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. […] And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe. As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua […] So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel” (Josh. 11:10-16). “Sola Scriptura” led to such a view on the Bible when the Old Testament was not transformed in the New, but mechanically added to it. Through this a war with Indians became religiously justified and the literalism in handling the Scriptures gave base to the genocide of the indigenous American population. Thus, through the wrong understanding, the Bible can become dangerous to a person reading it and to the people around him. |
| An early eleventh-century Euchologion from Constantinople includes a description of the paschal baptismal rite of the Great Church. From this it is clear that most of the fifteen readings would have been read in the Church while the patriarch was performing the baptisms in the baptistery. A rubric states that, after the Entrance at Vespers when the second reader begins «Be enlightened, be enlightened» – that is Isaiah 60, the second of the present fifteen readings – »the patriarch enters the vestry of the great baptistery». After the baptisms, as the singers chant, «As many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ», he anoints the newly baptised with the holy myron and then »makes the entrance with them and begins the Liturgy». The other readings include the story of the Passover ( Ex 12 ), the crossing of the Red Sea and the song of Moses ( Ex 13–15 ), and the last Passover before entering the promised land (Josh (Jesus son of Navi) 5). There are stories of only sons saved, or brought back from death, in Genesis 22 and 1 and 2 Kings. The whole book of Jonah, who is taken by Jesus himself as a type of his resurrection, is read, together with two passages taken as prophetic of the resurrection, Zephaniah (Sophonias) 3:8, «Wait upon me for the day of my resurrection» (LXX), and Isaiah 63:11, »Where is he who brought the shepherd of the sheep out of the earth?« 53 Translations dependent on the Hebrew, including the Vulgate, have »sea» here rather than «earth». Other prophecies are relevant to baptism: the »garment of salvation», the gift of «the Spirit of the Lord» in Isaiah 61, and the promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 38. The final reading is the story of the three youths from Daniel 3 , together with their song, which, as well as being a type of baptism, forms a triumphant conclusion to the readings just before the return of the patriarch to the church with the newly baptised for the paschal Liturgy. In the pagan world of the early Church, the story of the three youths who refuse the idolatrous worship of Nabuchodonosor " s golden idol would have been particularly apposite. |
| Earliest Christianity, rooted in early Judaism and steeped in the LXX, would have heard the account differently. Early Jewish sources also report nature miracles; for instance, storms could be stilled through acts of repentance (Jonah 1:12–15) or through prayer. 6059 Moses also parted the sea, and those who stepped into the Jordan in Joshuas day found it parted as well (Josh 3:13–16); some early rabbinic traditions attributed this event to the merits of the ancestors. 6060 Yet stilling storms and parting the waters to walk through them, though relevant, are not exactly the same as walking on them. Most significantly, hearers rooted in a Jewish framework 6061 would have recognized an epiphany of the one true deity: God was the one who walked on the waters (Job 9LXX). 6062 Some see an allusion to the exodus via Ps 77:16–19 (76:17–20 LXX), which speaks of God " s paths in the sea ( Ps 77 6063 Already in Mark, Jesus» self-revelation on the waters appears as a theophany ( Mark 6:50 ); 6064 it is thus not surprising that John, whether depending on the same source or an independent tradition, develops this theme further ( John 6:20 ). 6065 Some are uncertain or doubtful that «I am» in 6(cf. 4:26; 6:35; 13:19) implies a divine formula; 6066 yet while it is admittedly less clear than texts like 8:58, it can be no less clear, in the context of the Fourth Gospel, than in Mark. 6067 But for John as for the Synoptic writers, Christology had practical implications; the narrative emphasizes Jesus» power but shows that he employed that power out of concern for his followers. 6068 2. The Miracles (6:19, 21) Because the disciples were probably not crossing at the widest part of the lake but from the northeast to the northwest shores, the distance stated (6:19) suggests that they were most of the way across the lake. 6069 That they have traveled only some three to three and one-half miles suggests that the winds have been difficult; the stirring of the sea (6:18) would also make it difficult for rowing to advance the boat (6:19). Sudden and harsh storms on the Lake of Galilee often force even modern power boats to remain on land until they subside. 6070 Fishermen normally did not leave shore in storms, 6071 but the disciples were caught in a storm after setting out. Greeks praised philosophers who demonstrated consistency with their teaching by maintaining a serene attitude during a storm. 6072 Although the disciples» response to the storm itself is not narrated, their response to Jesus in 6suggests that they failed the test. |
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