David wrote > > Bill, I hope you
don't think that all Jewish theology embraces the Sadducean viewpoint of no
afterlife. [] I do find some of your recent comments interesting in light of our
past discussions where the "Hebrew mindset" was emphasized as an important
one for interpreting Scripture, and the Greek view of dualism was
criticized for being contrary to the Hebrew mindset (which is really
contrary only to the Sadducean Hebrew mindset to which you now express some
objection in a different context).
Hi David, you reduce my point on several levels and then draw what seems to
be a spurious connection to my interpretive approach.
Just as I do not think that the Jews of Jesus' day held
specifically to one position to the exclusion of another, neither do I
believe that the Jews of today are predominately "Sadducean" in their outlook
over against something else. Their eschatological conclusions may be similar to
that of First century Sadducees, but it is not primarily because of the
Sadducees that they hold to their current views. With that said, I do think that
contemporary Jews are much more universally oriented away from living
with a conscious view to the future than were many of the Jews of
Jesus' day. The more liberal the Jew today, the more agnostic he is about God in
general and about the future in particular (this is a very demonstratively
observable fact), and the much more likely he is to embrace an evolutionary
mindset in regards to the hereafter; in other words, "We came from nothing; we
will go to nothing; therefore all we have with which to leave our mark is the
present." On the other hand, the more conservative the Jew, the more likely he
is to believe that until the Temple is restored or the Messiah arrives, there
can be no atonement for sins, BUT since God is merciful, he will not punish his
people in the hereafter for something for which no atonement exists; so, for
them it is back to the early idea of "from dust we came, to
dust we will return" (and while this is the same basic conclusion that
the Sadducees drew, they drew it for entirely different reasons).
Hence both groups are in effect stationed very much in the now, having
not the theological framework to sustain an optimistic outlook upon future
-- and this even though their theologies vary quite distinctively one from
the other.
More to the point, this, it seems to me, is all quite unrelated to
the deliberately "Hebrew mindset" of my interpretive hermeneutic.
Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 12:22
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Judaism and
Theology
> viewpoint of no afterlife.
>
> I do find some of your recent comments interesting in light of our past
> discussions where the "Hebrew mindset" was emphasized as an important one
> for interpreting Scripture, and the Greek view of dualism was criticized for
> being contrary to the Hebrew mindset (which is really contrary only to the
> Sadducean Hebrew mindset to which you now express some objection in a
> different context).
>
> Peace be with you.
> David Miller.
>
>
> ----------
> "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
>
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