Summary of New Testament From Jewish Point of View Class - 1/16/2023

-


I apologize for forgetting to post this summary until 1/22/2023, but I was traveling and writing up the summary got delayed.

We had quite a good group: Jo Ann, Dan, Steve, Merrill, Robin, Randy, David, Dave, Ruth, and Jessica attended.

Below is a summary of what went on written by Dan:

By the way John = John of Patmos

Revelation chapter 16 tells of the event called the pouring out of the seven bowls of God’s wrath, which are poured onto the earth which bring plagues like the plagues that God brought on Egypt in the Book of Exodus. 

In chapter 17 John sees the Whore of Babylon which David said any educated person of this time would know is the city of Rome.  The commentary talked of John’s preoccupation with sexual purity and how the Whore of Babylon was the inverse of Jewish sexual purity. To put it politely. 

Robin spoke of John’s problem with women in general and of a prophetess who was part of the church of Thyatira in particular, suggesting that he may have been jealous of her.

Chapter 17 verse 11 spoke of the Beast who was (existing)  but is not (existing) now, and who is to come. This may he been a prediction of the return of Cesar Nero, who had two titles (among many), one of whose numerical value added up to 616 and the other 666.

Finally, chapter 18 spoke of the fall of Babylon (Rome), the revenge of God’s people murdered there. It reads a little bit like the Book of Lamentations, except instead of being sad about the fall of this city, like Lamentations is sad about Jerusalem’s destruction, the author of Revelation gloats over Rome’s demise.

Contrary to John’s prediction, Rome is obviously still with us, long ago given the title “the eternal city.

If anything is missing from this summary, please add your input by clicking on the comment box.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summary of New Testament From a Jewish Point of View Class - March 27, 2023

-
Image
Jo Ann was off in Europe the day our class met, so Dan was the host of our meeting. Below is a summary, written by Dan, of what went on: “We had Karen, Steve, Dave, Merrill and Randy and Robin join in today. Robin is recovering from her hip replacement, and Steve’s wife is recovering from a complete knee replacement. We sang our “Old time religion” and Mi Shebeirach as usual. I believe we settled on reading IPeter next week.  We read through chapter 13, and Robin pointed out the many exhortations in the chapter, like the one to visit people who are imprisoned are identical to some Jewish writings. Steve pointed out that Hebrews 27:13 referred to the story of the three visitors to Abraham in Genesis. We were a puzzled about Hebrews 13:10s’ assertion about Christians having an altar that the priests in the temple had no right to eat from. The commentary said this could be the heavenly altar. Dan thought it may refer to communion.  The book as a whole made the argument that for J...
Read more

Summary of New Testament From a Jewish Point of View Class - 3/13/23 and 3/20/23

-
Image
Due to my husband Dan’s mother’s recent death, it’s been more difficult to get these summaries done, so this summary includes two weeks. On Monday, March 13, Jo Ann, Dan, Steve, Karen, Dave, Norky, Merrill, Neil, Robin, and Randy attended.  We were glad to have Robin and Randy back after Robin’s hip replacement surgery. Below is a summary written by Dan of what went on on Monday, 3/13/23: We read Hebrews chapter 10, as well as some of the commentary from the Jewish Annotated New Testament.  As the chapter began, the author spoke of the “good things” that Jesus did that “The law” could not do, namely solve the problem of sin, “once and for all”. The author argued that the blood of animals  could not truly take away sin, because if animal blood sacrifice took sin away,  sinners would not feel guilty for their sins anymore. Because people had to keep coming back to sacrifice, it must not take away sin at all. Following that is a discussion about Jesus that seemed to imp...
Read more

Summary of New Testament From Jewish Point of View Class - January 30, 2023

-
Image
Our class was as lively and as fun as always!  Jo Ann, Dan, Ruth, Dave, Karen, Odette, Merrill, Norky, Neil, and Diann attended.  We missed Steve, David, Randy, Robin, Jessica, Kim, Patricia, and Jay and a few others that attend once in a while. Below is a summary written by Dan of what we discussed: We read Revelation chapters 21 and 22, and finished the book of Revelation. Jo Ann brought to our attention how part of the passage comprise part of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s’ Messiah. This passage describes the revelation of the new heaven and new earth, and the idea of eternity in a New Jerusalem where God and the Lamb (Jesus)  dwell with humankind. Forever. A couple of points: 1. The New Jerusalem lacks a temple, saying that the presence of God and the Lamb will be in place of the temple. This contrasts with the Book of Ezekiel, which describes a temple in the world to come. According to the Annotated New Testament some Christian interpreters say this is because ...
Read more