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To: Buggman

Actually, I like the Karaites a lot. However, the fact is that Yeshua spent most of His time with and debating the Pharisees. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, that was a sign of kinship--you argued loudest with your own family, and more softly with those outside the group. The fact that Yeshua spent so much time trying to correct the Pharisees meant that they were closest to the truth in His mind (the only one that counts); the fact that the Pharisees spent so much time with Him and invited Him to eat with them is evidence that they too saw Him as one of their own, or close enough for table-fellowship.
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Perhaps. But I wouldn't want to over state it.

Christ might have also spent that time in order to highlight the errors of the pharisees. I think that more plausible given His assertions about their blindness and things being deliberately hidden from them.


7,306 posted on 01/23/2007 4:44:19 AM PST by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
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To: Quix
Christ might have also spent that time in order to highlight the errors of the pharisees. I think that more plausible given His assertions about their blindness and things being deliberately hidden from them.

That would be culturally inconsistent for the reasons I've already given. He was far more frustrated with the Pharisees as a group because they were so close to the Truth, but were missing it (and causing others to miss it) because they could not admit that some (not all) of their traditions were wrong. Because they were closer to the truth, in effect having more light, He held them to a higher standard.

Look at it this way: The Sadducees were undeniably corrupt and had turned the Temple of God into their own private marketplace. But how much time did Yeshua spend debating with them the way He did the Pharisees? Not much. He cleared out the Temple and He answered a few direct questions during the Passion Week, but other than that He avoided them. It was the cultural equivalent to a brush-off, to saying that they weren't worth His time (again, as a group, not as individuals).

Or to put it another way: Who do you argue the most with, your brothers and sisters, or the neighbor down the street that you have nothing in common with?

The rhetoric in the NT against the Jews is very typical Oriental (Near-Eastern) behavior between members of a wider family; unfortunately, we Westerners with our different culture are looking at this family argument from the outside, and passing judgment on the members without understanding the family culture.

7,353 posted on 01/23/2007 12:37:18 PM PST by Buggman (http://brit-chadasha.blogspot.com)
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