Posted on 07/26/2014 7:09:35 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The canonical Bible is filled with mysterious characters, many of whom drop in for a cameo, do their thing, and then slide out, never to be heard from again. Some are merely extras, but some have a contextual presence that begs further examination. And some are, well, just weird.
10 Melchizedek
Probably the single most mysterious figure in the Bible, Melchizedek was a priest-king of Salem (later known as Jerusalem) in the time of Abram (Abraham), suggesting a religious organization, complete with ritual and hierarchy, that predated the Jewish nation and their priestly lineage from the tribe of Levi. He is only portrayed as active in one passage, although he is alluded to once in Psalms, and several times in the New Testament’s Epistle to the Hebrews.
Some Jewish disciplines insist that Melchizedek was Shem, Noah’s son. He is thought of, in Christian circles, as a proto-messiah, embodying certain traits later given to Christ. New Testament writings assert that Christ was “a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek,” indicating an older and deeper covenant with God than the Abrahamic-Levite lineage.
Hebrews 7, though presents him in a more unusual light. In verses 3 and 4:
“Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning
of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest
continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the
patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at listverse.com ...
Regarding Cain, the bible does not say he is the first child of Adam & Eve. He is the first child mentioned (Gen. 4), but the text does not say he was the first child. In Genesis 3 (the Fall) we have an interesting clue: after disobeying God and eating fruit from the forbidden tree, God tells Eve that her pains during child birth will be “greatly increased.” Greatly increased from what? Apparently she and Adam had already had children.
I always wondered about that.
Seems to me we just “know” that incest is very wrong, with or without laws.
Plenty!
We see that Cain and Abel offered sacrifices. How did they know to do that? Or what to offer?
Cain was punished for killing his brother, but the Bible up to that point records no such prohibition.
Enoch “walked with God”. Where did he learn what behavior would be considered righteous?
I thought James became a believer after the resurrection. John 19:26 said it was “the disciple whom He loved standing nearby.”
How could the author say there were no apostles at the crucifixion?
One Sunday School study was done from each of the Old Testament books showing God’s plan of salvation through the people who are given attention. Long study but from it I learned that those who God did not give a lot information about were not as important to the mission of salvation. So, why waste time trying to figure out who they were? Figure out why the other’s stories are given.
Like the thunderous utterances that John was forbidden to write down in Revelation, God has his secrets and only will give us occasional hints. There might even be folks alive even now like the prophet and prophetess who spoke of Christ’s mission on the 8th day after his birth, whom God has given much truth but have been told to keep silent but to act in certain ways...much like oars that steer the boat of history thru it’s various currents and eddies.
If you want to understand Melchizdek and its priestly order, look at the life of Christ and see how he acted. Mankind was condemned under the Mosaic law, but Christ, the fulfillment of that law, came to save it.
The law condemns a man who sins and leaves him no relief, even should he repent...but Christ saves a man and wipes the slate clean.
Melchizidek is a priestly order dedicated to the reclamation of men and to restore them to fellowship with God. The law is not set at naught but instead it becomes alive via the Holy Spirit in each regenerated man and operates via Melchizidek normatives not Mosaic normatives or more simply put, with the mind of Christ!
Such regenerated men operate via the two greatest commandments...to Love God with all that they are and to love their neighbors as themselves. God is Love!
If the immediate descendants of Adam and Eve lived for an extremely long time, then after a few hundred years, there were probably lots and lots of females for him to marry. Of course, that's quite a ways to wait for a sweetheart, I guess...
I don't see how anyone could argue that the “disciple Jesus loved” is not John. John's Gospel is heavy on love, the word appears 20 times. John 3:16 shows God's love for the world and John by calling himself the disciple Jesus loved to show that God's love is persona. Not that God loved some more than others which would be the only meaning if referring to someone by that title in 3rd person.
We know all the disciples at one point fled, Mark 14:50, Matthew 26:56. I think there is little doubt John was there; it also seems that Peter too returned. Luke 23:49 clearly indicates there were a group of followers who beheld the crucifixion at a distance. The Romans crucified people in the open where they could seen by all as an example. The old rugged cross was far away from us, not the people in Jerusalem. It also took some time so the disciples could very easily have fled in fear and then returned in the crowd that gathered at the cross. I'd say the article wasn't written by a Bible Scholar.
I Peter 5:1 “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:”
Acts 4:20 Peter and John are defending their testimony of the resurrection “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” This isn't conclusive on it's own, but when viewed with other passages it certainly makes sense.
BookMark
And if Adam and Eve were in a garden that intersected the spiritual and the earthly, then they could have been cast from it, and an angel could have been placed on guard to prevent re-entry to it. It would have contained the tree of life, a location of that tree reappearing at the end of the Revelation.
That casting from the Garden into the realm of the physical earth might well have brought them to a place where "the children of Adam" confronted children of men; 'male and female, He created them." And He kept NO plant from them.
Genesis 1: 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
Genesis 2: 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. .....snip....15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
This is another means of accounting for Cain's wife and for a distinction between those who were from Adam and some who were not.
This understanding, too, has its difficulties, but it is an alternative, that is, that the man and woman placed in that garden were unique and separate from the others.
Exactly. How about Adam and Eve? They leave the garden as practical naïfs, wholly unskilled in basic survival, and are able to survive. Clearly, they received more instruction and guidance than contained in Genesis.
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