Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Random Thought #67
My dear sweet mother just bought me a couple more books for Christmas (Thanks Mom) and one of them is about what happened between the end of the Hebrew Old Testament and the beginning of the Greek New Testament. I've only read the first chapter because I couldn't resist but also because I need to finish the other book I'm reading first. I already learned something new. When the Israelites split into two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom founded their new capital in Samaria while the Southern Kingdom remained in Jerusalem. We, of course, know that the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC and took many away captive, but some returned. The Southern Kingdom was then conquered later by the Babylonians in 587 BC and trashed Jerusalem including destroying the temple. When the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem by Cyrus (Persian king who conquered the Babylonians) 50 years later, they were told after settling down a bit to re-build the temple both by Cyrus and by the Lord through his prophet Haggai. The Israelites from the Northern Kingdom asked if they could help as they remembered the importance of the temple of Solomon before the kingdoms were split. The Jews from the Southern Kingdom refused to let them help as they did not see them as being pure anymore. Many of them had intermarried with the Assyrians during their time of captivity and intermarrying with Gentiles was strictly forbidden under the Law of Moses. This irritated the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom and they have hated each other ever since. Remember how I mentioned that when the kingdoms split apart, the capital of the Northern Kingdom was Samaria? Well guess what they called themselves? Yup, Samaritans. Recall the story of the good samaritan? It says that a Jew was beaten and left for dead and nobody (not even of his own kind) would help, but a samaritan who hated the Jews and vice versa came to help. Does this background story help with the significance of that story? The basics of these stories and parables still mean something to us today and we can learn lessons from them, but they were not written at the time for us. They were written for the saints of the time. To get the full meaning of what these stories and parables are trying to tell us, we need to understand these people and this history and their language and mannerisms. There is a whole chapter on Samaritans in chapter 14 so I'll have to wait a little longer to get more details on these people but I'm excited. Doesn't this just make you want to read and learn and study?!!?!? LOVE IT LOVE IT!!
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