Here's today's morning insight. I've found myself reading into some of the Old Testament apocrypha - not just the deuterocanonical books that are in the Catholic OT, but even going beyond that into some of the documents that pretty much everyone leaves out of their OT. Today I'm reading in 2 Esdras, which is a first century apocalyptic book (so it's not from before Jesus, but it is from a Jewish context, though perhaps with Christian additions). So keep in mind this is not considered inspired Scripture...
Anyway, it's interesting that when the archangel Uriel comes to Ezra to explain his visions and teach him things, the archangel speaks for God in the first person ("my judgment," etc.) and Ezra speaks to the archangel as though speaking directly to God ("my Lord," etc.). This is very much like when the three visitors come to Abraham and he treats one of them as divine - but the difference is that in Genesis the Church fathers could say, well that's the pre-incarnate Christ, the Logos, and that makes sense. But here it's clearly not - it's an angel.
In any case, it does show that Jews (at least those more mystically-minded) were ready for the idea of an agent of God speaking as the voice of God, by the first century. Of course this is what Christ is - the agent of creation, the Word of God. But with Christ, he is divine, so we as the Church needed to clarify the doctrine of the Trinity to make sense of that.
Another way to go (and one that a certain faction did choose) would have been to say that Jesus himself was an angel or archangel (i.e., not divine). This became a form of adoptionism called angel christology, and of course it was a heresy. But I think we can see the seeds of that already in this Jewish apocalyptic document. And I believe it also manifests in the document known as The Shepherd, by a certain Hermas, in the second century. So we can see in 2 Esdras a kind of christological fork in the road, so to speak. And for what it's worth, Paul's opponents known as the "Judaizers" would also have taken this other path that leads to adoptionism.
This was for March 24th, recorded for the Ascension App
Thanks for your patience - here is our next installment of The Journey - it's session # 96, but I'm also calling it PART 1 of a "miniseries" on John chapter 6.
Whoever watches it first, please let me know if it looks good or if there are any problems with it - I get through the first two sections of the text on the feeding of the 5,000.
Enjoy!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
As I'm going through all my belongings as part of our move, I have come across some audio CDs of my old music, from when I had my band, Remember Rome - if any of you still have a CD player, and you would like me to send you some of what I have, send me the address to send them to at this email address: [email protected]
Some of these CDs are in their original cases, and some were demo samples, but either way, it's all original music written by me, and performed by me and my band back in the late 90s and early 2000s.
I'll be happy to find a good home for these CDs in case you might enjoy them, and because you all have been supporting me (and I haven't produced much content in the last month or so) I'll send you one or more CDs for free. Just give me an address.
Thanks!
Here's the link to the new edition of my Rome book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Rome-Second-Pilgrims-Guide-Eternal/dp/B0F8TGTWZX
