Wisdom of Solomon and idolatry

[StephieNorthCo]

The deutero-canonical have equal weight. Macc 1 and 2 are very useful for a number of issues.

In Bible study with Protestants, going through Eph 6:10-17, the spiritual warfare section, if you can’t compare that to Wis 5:15-23, there is all the richness in the world you are going to miss, because you can’t see what Christ’s sacrifice means in that context.

Enoch etc can have some interesting passages, but one quickly finds those things that got polluted (for lack of a better word) along the way. Not inspired.

 

[SeriousQuestion]

The first real prophecy about the Suffering Messiah in the Old Testament, and the one the disciples turned to when they were trying to work out what the Passion and resurrection was all about was Isaiah 53, the Suffering Servant

I thought the Psalms came first.

 

[MysticMonist]

Thanks to everyone for thier (name removed by moderator)ut. I really appreciate learning that to Catholics all scripture is scripture. I love some of the texts ignored by others.
I often feel bad posting my heretical thoughts on this forum. The reason I do is this one of the few places that can give me a reasoned response and very often makes me rethink things. On more evangelical forums I simply get shouted at and told to accept Christ (but only their version of course).
Also I realised that as I study these things more my problem is not with church teachings themselves. Views of the incarnation and the trinity and apostolic succession and such are in scripture and in the earliest days of the church. But they aren’t the only views. I think it’s a mistake to use scripture to form doctrine or even to use experiences of God to do so. I love gnosticism but I’ve never join the Gnositic church, it does exist. I love Judaism but I don’t want to follow the Rabbinical courts. My objection is when any group claims its views are the only supported by scripture when I think, at least, that scripture contains many and often contradictory views on almost every topic. Just look at the writings of John and of Paul, they describe very different Christianities.

 

[BartholomewB]

Are books like Tobit and Wisdom of equal weight and equally scripture as let’s says 1st and 2nd Kings? Or were the Protestants right to say only useful for inspiration not doctrine?

I believe the answer is Yes, they are, though I’m open to correction. The Old Testament, in Catholic use, comprises forty-six books. They are classified as a “first canon” of thirty-nine “protocanonical” books and a “second canon” of seven “deuterocanonical” books, though this may be a bit of an oversimplification because it fails to take account of certain chapters in Esther and Daniel that Protestant Bibles leave out. But as far as I’m aware, the books of the second canon enjoy equal status with those of the first canon. As you can see from Fr. Felix Just’s table (link below), the readings at Mass over the full two- or three-year cycle (three years for Sundays, two for weekdays), in the case of the Wisdom of Solomon, will add up to 102 verses out of the total 436 verses in the book, giving a proportion of 23.4 percent. Tobit, another deuterocanonical book, does better, with a score of 29.0 percent. In comparison, there are “first canon” books showing much lower scores, such as 6.0 percent for the Song of Solomon (aka Song of Songs) or only 4.2 percent for Nehemiah. Clearly the “second canon” books are not being discriminated against.
http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm

 

[Roseeurekacross]

This is a nice thread, and covers theology . Thanks for starting it mystic monist.

I must catch up with it later today.

Can I ask what your beliefs are. Only because you are wondering about Christianity being sinful due to idolatry. And have found this not to be so, through prayer. That’s an amazing statement of careful and considered discernment to me.
I am run of the mill Catholic. I a, an Aspirant in a religious community and undergoing a similar prayer discernment about the fit his community is for me. Not about idolatry.

Last week we had a retreat and were discussing the idolatry of God. This consists of using our biases and prejudices and our own ideas of what we believe God should be. So we ,must , ideally battle and stop those coming through in contemplative and meditative prayer. And just allow God to be.

So idolatry can be not just about th pagan statues and paintings, or putting sporting events and hero’s up, or even of attempting to become gods ourselves. The story of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament is about humans trying to be god themselves.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

A good description of the Trinity is like 2 triangles. In the centre is the word God. And arrows point to the outer triangle saying God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Around the outer triangle are the words Father Son and Holy Spirit. Arrows point around th outer triangle to each word saying the the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Father etc.

One Godhead and three coeternal, coequal and coessential persons. This is the immanent theology of the Trinity.

The doctrine of The Trinity has an Ontological or Immanent theology that describes the substance of the Trinity. It also has an economic theology that describes function. This describes the relationship of us to God, God’s relationship to be in communion with all living beings and this our relationship in communion with all living beings. Our destiny here

 

[Gab123]

The article states:

“In order to combat the spreading Christian cult, rabbis met at the city of Jamnia or Javneh in A.D. 90 to determine which books were truly the Word of God. They pronounced many books, including the Gospels, to be unfit as scriptures. . . Javneh rejected books which had been used by Jesus and the apostles and which were in the edition of the Bible that the apostles used in everyday life—the Septuagint.”

It dosen’t take much imagination to figure out why after centuries of using the Septuagint (Jesus heavily quoted from it) the group who rejected the Son of God would reject the Greek Hebrew Bible, which Jesus (God) quoted to them.

Furthermore, the early Christian Church identified Wisdom 2:12-20 as a prophecy about the suffering messiah; as does the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here is the prophecy again for you to read:

12 Let us lie in wait for the righteous one,
because he is annoying to us;

he opposes our actions,

Reproaches us for transgressions of the law

and charges us with violations of our training.

13He professes to have knowledge of God

and styles himself a child of the LORD.

14To us he is the censure of our thoughts;

merely to see him is a hardship for us,

15Because his life is not like that of others,

and different are his ways.

16He judges us debased;

he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.

He calls blest the destiny of the righteous

and boasts that God is his Father.j

17Let us see whether his words be true;

let us find out what will happen to him in the end.k

18For if the righteous one is the son of God, God will help him

and deliver him from the hand of his foes.l

19With violence and torture let us put him to the test

that we may have proof of his gentleness

and try his patience.

20Let us condemn him to a shameful death;

for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”m

21These were their thoughts, but they erred;

for their wickedness blinded them

 

[BartholomewB]

It dosen’t take much imagination to figure out why …

Thank you for that. You are telling me that the source of your assertion about the rabbis’ reason for not admitting Wisdom to their canon is exactly that … your imagination.

 

[Gab123]

Did you expect them to officially announce that they were going to remove the book of Wisdom because It had a clear prophecy about the suffering messiah?

Again:

In order to combat the spreading Christian cult, rabbis met at the city of Jamnia or Javneh in A.D. 90 to determine which books were truly the Word of God. They pronounced many books, including the Gospels, to be unfit as scriptures. . . Javneh rejected books which had been used by Jesus and the apostles and which were in the edition of the Bible that the apostles used in everyday life—the Septuagint.”

 

[MysticMonist]

Thanks, that’s an awesome quote. As a fan of this school of texts it makes sense the Jews felt they were tainted by being used by Christans and for the Christain church many of them fell too far outside of orthodoxy.
It’s a real shame.

 

[MysticMonist]

good description of the Trinity

I don’t want to get too off topic but since you brought it up. What does incarnation of Christ mean? What does it mean that God became man?
I studying kabbalah and there was a saying of one of the sages that God is known by his works. Reminded me of that passage in John, no one has seen the Father but thru Jesus He has been made known.
Any physical, walking, talking being seems to me to not be of the same unknownable essence as the Father by definition. Yet I know the Eastern view of the font of divinity that the Son and the Spirit are manifest and the Father is unmanifest does address this somewhat. Also if you have a God who emanated from His essence into modes of being then where you draw a line between Godhead and creation is rather arbitrary. So it seems to me that it is a very complex concept and it isn’t a clear cut as typically described, especially if one is a monist or spinozist.

 

[Gab123]

it makes sense the Jews felt they were tainted by being used by Christans and for the Christain church

After the Resurrection of Jesus and the Veil of the Temple was torn, the presence of God was no longer among them, and Christianity began to spread wildly. As Scripture describes: “The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” Acts 6:7

Thus the same Jewish authorities that had so fiercely plotted to trap, mock, torture and put Jesus to death, began persecuting the apostles and Jewish converts to Christianity, as evidenced by the Book of Acts, and Saul of Tarsus’ own testimony as a persecutor of Christians. Not only did the Jewish authorities persecute the Jewish converts to Christianity, the sought deny and purge any thought of Jesus fulfilling the many prophecies of the messiah, of which there are hundreds of them in the ancient texts, including where He was to be born, the manner in which He would teach, the way that He would suffer and die, etc.

As stated earlier, most of the early Christian movement flourished as a Greek-speaking movement, thus it was natural for Christians to adopt the Greek Jewish scriptures because these Scriptures had always been used as inspired by a God, as evidenced by Christ Himself who quoted them. The fact that the Jewish authorities viciously and violently rejected Christ, and that the Talmud itself was written by the rabbis over centuries with an emphasis to discredit Christianity and Christ Himself. in order to prevent the Jewish population from finding Christ in the Scriptures, it is no surprise that they would discredit the Greek Septuagint, since the vast majority of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament (written in Greek) that Jesus quoted to the Pharisees come from the Septuagint, which includes the Book of Wisdom’s prophecy of the suffering messiah.