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New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective (view source)
Revision as of 20:26, June 11, 2008
, 20:26, June 11, 2008no edit summary
Other ramifications would be understood from these forms of expressions with their attendant associations. As "Moses on Mount Sinai" had entailed within it the forming of a new people, a nation to be, to be "spelled out" in the generations to come, so too, Jesus would be the "center piece" around which also would be formed a new people, spear- headed not by 12 tribes, but by 12 apostles, a nation quite like and quite unlike that which had preceded. The Nation of the New Israel, the Church built upon the Rock.
Other ramifications would be understood from these forms of expressions with their attendant associations. As "Moses on Mount Sinai" had entailed within it the forming of a new people, a nation to be, to be "spelled out" in the generations to come, so too, Jesus would be the "center piece" around which also would be formed a new people, spear- headed not by 12 tribes, but by 12 apostles, a nation quite like and quite unlike that which had preceded. The Nation of the New Israel, the Church built upon the Rock.
'''Example 3.'''
Feeling the texture. Taking the hint.
Coming down low, often gives a true view of how things really are and how they differ from each other.
Many view the two accounts of the miraclulous feeding of the multitudes a literary fiction or at best a one time event told twice - with added color. Focusing on the literary and artistic creation of the form of the story, then, produces in us an unspoken and perhaps unrealized assuption that it never really happened, that it is a devise to make a point or teach a lesson, that it is not what it purports to be. But from down low and feeling the texture, we can see that these are differing stories, told for different reasons, and hence, without understanding fully, we are found with conviction as to their having actually taken place.
The first feeding was in the Jewish area of the north west shore of the sea of Galilee. He had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and had sent out his followers to preach and practice the kingdom among the Jews, and not the Samaritans or the Gentiles. And it was in this area that he had the multitudes sit down on the green grass in groups of fifty and a hundred as Israel long ago had grouped in the desert. He had chosen His twelve to " sit on the thrones":of Israel, not abolishing Israel, but fulfilling Israel in the new nation and people he was forming. It was green grass at that time of year because of the season and because it was at the Jewish end of the north shore fed by the seven springs ("heptapeigon" in Greek) which would become linguistically corrupted to its present name of Tabgha. There these seven springs gushing forth from warm water underground sources brought a steady flow of warm currents into the Sea attracting the many fish, most notably, the fresh water Tilapia, "Musht" in Arabic, "Amnon" in Hebrew, and "St. Peter's" fish to the Christian tourist. Such was the case up until this warm flow was stopped up by the 1950's water diversion project of the State of Israel diverting the flow to the National Water Carrier taking irrigation to the Negev, causing "the flowers to bloom" . And there in the back of the present day Church of the Primacy at the lip of the Sea, and indeed the base of the church itself, can be seen the 1st century steps leading down to the little harbor where the fishermen disciples of Jesus, along with so many others in the 1st century, had tied up their boats and rigged and repaired their nets. In this area, up the hill a bit, Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, gave the blessing, and fed them all, through the hands of the disciples, filling thousands of their stomachs to the amazement of the disciples who saw it all happen before their eyes and from their own hands. And so the Messianic Kingdom was dawning then and there before their eyes. And in that spot, the Bysantines would build a church whose floor now appears as part of the floor of the present "reconstitued" Roman Catholic Church of the Multiplication, and there under the altar of both churches is the Byzantine Mosaic of the Feeding but with four loaves and two fish and not five loaves and two fish as so clearly presented in the Gospel of Mark. But the sensitivity of the Byzentines was accurate and thought out for they saw that the fifth loaf was Jesus Himself and His presence among them at the Eucharist. Of special note in the Gospel and for the early church (whose deacons distributed the blessed bread to the people of the Lord unable to attend the assembly) is that it was 12 baskets that remained over and distributed - a basket each for the reconstitued Israel descended from the 12 Fathers the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All so Jewish, in the Jewish Tetrarchy of Herod Antipas.
But quite different, the second feeding, then after a "foray" of Jesus passing out of the Tetrachy of Herod Antipas, and through Nachal Amud the way that led to Gush Halav, where the Apostle Paul's parents had been born and lived and from which (Jerome) had been exiled to Tarsus in Cilicia, and coming into the non Jewish Phoenicia, and seeing such faith as never had been in Israel, and knowing what the promise of the Father had been that all the peoples of the world would be blessed in the choosing and the seed of Abraham, and knowing that that is also why he was called and where it would all lead, Jesus returned and passed into the Gentile area of the Tetrachy of Herod Antipas' brother Philip and to the Roman Decapolis, to the eastern gentile shore of the Sea of Galilee, and there, this time not on the green grass but on the barren hill, He did the same, He blessed the bread and this time there were many small fish, the Galilee "sardines", and fed the gentiles just as He had the Jews, miraculously, and to their stomachs full, and this time there were Seven baskets left over. For seven was known to be the number, not only of completion, and perfection, and fulfilling of the epoch, but also it was the number signifying "all the peoples of the world." For it was seven nations that Israel had dispossed coming into the Land (Deut. 7:1) - the Hittites, Girgashites (these were still living in the Decapolis in the first century), the Amorites, Canaanites, Perrizites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And it was, according to first century thinking as well as Biblical formulation, 7x10 = 70 peoples which constituted the whole of the peoples of the world around Israel (Gen. 10). And so the Kingdom of Heaven would now be open to all the peoples of the world, and "unto the ends of the earth."
From close to the ground - two stories, two Feedings, two messages, and two real occurances. .
==See Also==
==See Also==