tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post1618810979032025594..comments2023-10-30T04:31:42.031-07:00Comments on THE TEMPLE: THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF MELCHIZEDEKPegasushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12122356371487253798noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post-53369436883027798942014-07-19T07:07:31.546-07:002014-07-19T07:07:31.546-07:00I hope to visit this site again adn to read everth...I hope to visit this site again adn to read everthing when I have more time than I do now. Keep up the good work. Have been interested in these things since seventh grade or so. HALFORD E. JONESHALFORD E. JONEShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12168580062742457670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post-17507731680470051202008-08-29T18:23:00.000-07:002008-08-29T18:23:00.000-07:00Just noticed myself (!!) that this is the Psalm Si...Just noticed myself (!!) that this is the Psalm Simone Weil is referring to...Pegasushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12122356371487253798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post-78986999115373848592008-08-29T16:21:00.000-07:002008-08-29T16:21:00.000-07:00More on Melchisedek...Its not in fact true that M ...More on Melchisedek...<BR/><BR/>Its not in fact true that M only gets the briefest mention in the Old Testament and more in the New...<BR/><BR/>Here is a mysterious Psalm... number 110:<BR/><BR/>'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thine footstool.<BR/>The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.<BR/>Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.<BR/>The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.<BR/>The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.<BR/>He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many bodies.<BR/>He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head."<BR/><BR/>Very strange... Who is the second Lord in the first line? Who is this Psalm referring to?Pegasushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12122356371487253798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post-83754446361774197472008-08-22T07:07:00.000-07:002008-08-22T07:07:00.000-07:00Here's Simone Weil on Melchizedek in her work LETT...Here's Simone Weil on Melchizedek in her work LETTER TO A PRIEST. Orthodox Jews may be a little upset. She clearly hadn't read the Kabbalah, for instance!:<BR/><BR/>"The passages in the Bible (Genesis, Psalms, St Paul) concerning Melchizedek prove that from the dawn of Israel there existed outside Israel a service of and knowledge of God situated on the selfsame level as Christianity and infinitely superior to anything Israel itself has ever possessed.<BR/><BR/>There is nothing to exclude the supposition of a link between Melchizedek and the ancient Mysteries. There is an affinity between bread and Demeter, wine and Dionysus...<BR/><BR/>...The passage in St Paul concerning Melchizedek, taken in connection with Christ's words 'Abraham hath seen my day ' might even indicate that Melchizedek was already an Incarnation of the Word.<BR/><BR/>At all events, we do not know for certain that there have not been incarnations previous to that of Jesus, and that Osiris in Egypt, Krishna in India were not of that number."Pegasushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12122356371487253798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post-9366967686812998842008-08-20T01:45:00.000-07:002008-08-20T01:45:00.000-07:00Another feature of the Essene Scroll on Melchizede...Another feature of the Essene Scroll on Melchizedek is that there have been a series of such Teachers down through history who have been 'hidden', of which Melchizedek is the most well-known. This fits in nicely with the Templar idea of a concealed 'Order of Melchizedek'. <BR/><BR/>But it does beg one question:<BR/><BR/>How did the Templars know?<BR/><BR/>As we've seen, there are only two mentions of M in the whole of the Bible - he brief one in GENESIS and the longer exposition in the EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. Although the EPISTLE speaks of the Order of Melchzedek, there is no reference to this Order being hidden away. And yet that seems to have been what the Templars thought. They couldn't have had access to the Essene Scroll as they weren't found until 1947. The only possible solution is that they would have come across information of the Order while in the Holy Land. After all, we know that they were in conversation with Jewish, Muslim and Orthodox Mystics as their architecture bears witness to it.<BR/><BR/>Interesting stuff... But that would mean that there may have been traditions left over from the Essenes buzzing about in the region. Remember that the EPISTLE suggests that the Order of Melchizedek supercedes that of Aaron and Moses (Christ is described as not coming from the Levite line). So the Essenes must have seen themselves as opposed to the Cohanim-represented Judaism of the Second Temple. <BR/><BR/>The plot thickens!Pegasushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12122356371487253798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23362604687961514.post-33576324613122859982008-08-19T09:24:00.000-07:002008-08-19T09:24:00.000-07:00More developments on the Melchizedek front:Accordi...More developments on the Melchizedek front:<BR/><BR/>According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes had a prophecy concerning Melchizedek which envisaged him as a sort of Messiah figure. The relevant scroll is known as "the Heavenly Prince Melchizedek' by Scholars. In this fragment, Melchizedek is referred to as the leader of 'the Sons of Heaven' and 'the Gods of Justice'. He is prophecied as returning at some point to redeem the Righteous as predicted by Isaiah, thus carrying out the desire of God.<BR/><BR/>Here are some extracts:<BR/><BR/>"He [God] will assign them to cast their lot amid the portions of Melchizedek, who will return them there and will proclaim to them liberty, forgiving them the wrong-doings of all their iniquities...<BR/><BR/>...and he will, by his strength, judge the holy ones of God, executing judgement as it is written concerning him in the Songs of David...<BR/><BR/>...And Melchizedek will avenge the vengeance of the judgements of God... and all the Gods of Justice will come to his aid to attend the destruction of Belial. And the height is... all the Sons of God... This is the day of Peace/Salvation, concerning which God spoke through Isaiah the prophet...<BR/><BR/>...And the messenger is the Anointed one of the spirit...<BR/><BR/>...And your ELOHIM is Melchizedek, who will save them from the hand of Belial."<BR/><BR/>- THE COMPLETE DEAD SEA SCROLLS IN ENGLISH ISBN 0140449523<BR/><BR/>Note that 'the Anointed One' is a translation of the word 'Christ', or 'One Who Has Received The Chrism', Chrism being linked to the Greek word for Gift. The striking thing here is that the Redeemer figure is Melchizedek himself undergoing a kind of Second Coming. It is not a huge leap of the imagination to connect the arrival of Christ as a reappearance of Melchizedek in the context of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Thus Christ is, in this sense, a reincarnation of Melcihizedek. They are one and the same person.<BR/><BR/>So if there is some kind of connection between this Essene Tradition and the birth of early Christianity then that makes a lot more sense of what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is saying.<BR/><BR/>In her book TEMPLE THEOLOGY, Margaret Barker argues that the equation of Melchizedek with Christ is part of a process among Judaic reformers to reconnect with the 'pure' Judaism of Abraham rather than that of Moses. She points out that, even according to the Old Testament, absolute Monotheism wasn't imposed upon the Jews until King Josiah's time (see KINGS). Josiah is credited with discovering the Scroll which bore the words of the Book of Deuteronomy, the Book of Moses which is the most Absolutist in its Monotheism centred around Yahweh. As a consequence of this, Josiah instigated a purge of anything which conflicted with the Commandments given there. Before then, Judaism was more pluralist and, dare I say it, polytheist, with Asherah being allowed within Temple worship etc.<BR/><BR/>Barker argues that the Epistle to the Hebrews and this prophecy of the Essenes connecting Melchizedek with Christ points to a reforming movement within Israel which sought not to create a new religion but to return to the simplicity of the pre-Josiah Judaism which began with Abraham ie before the Commandments given to Moses, or at least those given in Deuteronomy. She includes in her argument discussion about hostility within Israel to the Second Temple which had been built by the Roman puppet Herod, with which the Sadducees and Pharisees were associated. People like the Essenes regarded it as a pollution of the true Judaism of the First Temple, hence their withdrawal from mainstream Jewish society. Thus Christ's opposition to the Sadducees and Pharisees was not opposition to Judaism but to the later, Absolutist Judaism of his time. <BR/><BR/>Barker goes further in including Paul in this. In Galatians, Paul describes going to Arabia after his revelation of Christ rather than to the Apostles in Jerusalem (Paul says he went to Damascus in particular). Barker points out that is where the Priests expelled by Josiah went to to continue their practises. Thus, she posits, Paul's Christianity was connected to the old, not quite monotheistic Judaism of the pre-Josiah period, hence the readiness of Christianity to embrace quasi-polytheistic ideas such as the Trinity.<BR/><BR/>This would also account for why HEBREWS does not equate Christ with the Tribe of Levi (ie that of Aaron), as this Mosaic Judaism would have been conflicting with the Abrahamic/Melchizedekian one...<BR/><BR/>Its an interesting theory, and would suggest that Christ and Paul were looking back to 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' rather than the God of Moses and Aaron, but has some problems:<BR/><BR/>1) Paul doesn't talk much about the Trinity, its more in the Johannine works<BR/><BR/>2) The Essenes clearly saw Moses and Aaron as part of their Tradition as there are large amounts of documents referring to them in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unless one theorises that Deuteronomy was actually an INSERT by Josiah and thus evidence of a later, doctored Judaism, its hard to see why the Essenes, in a desire for a simpler, Melchizedekian/Abrahamic Judaism would not have seen a conflict between that and Mosaic Judaism.<BR/><BR/>3) If Christ was reacting against Absolutist Mosaic Judaism in this way, why does he keep referring back to Moses in the Gospels?<BR/><BR/>Interesting stuff though... Melchy just won't go away!Pegasushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12122356371487253798noreply@blogger.com