What’s new?

Certainly not Christmas, for we now trivialize a pivotal time in human history with never-ending ‘holiday’ things. “Where are our new toys,” ‘holiday season’ commercials lead us to ask?

Most years I share a series celebrating the Advent of the joyous season of Christmas. This year’s four-part Advent series will focus on the prophecy of Isaiah, a book written about 700 years before Christ.

Oh, by the way, you do know that B.C. is our delineation of time meaning, “Before Christ?” Go ahead and time stamp this series properly: In the year of our Lord, 2016. 

Travel through time with us between first century Palestine, under the rule of a powerful Roman Empire and the same area of the middle east threatened years prior by a powerful Assyrian Empire and an emerging Babylonian empire. (Nothing new under the sun.)

Historical resource: Assyria, 1365-609 BC

About the Author

Isaiah the Prophet

Isaiah was a man who was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Prophet of the Lord, Isaiah, was alive during a time when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians. He was a mouthpiece of God and spoke during the reign of several kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (around 765-695 B.C.). He continually wore a coarse linen or hairy overcoat of a dark color, which was typically worn by mourners.

Source: Bible History Online

Think back from Roman occupied Judea 700 years before Christ. For you and I, it would be like recalling the A.D. 1300’s, before European ‘civilization’ discovered and colonized this ‘new world.’ Isaiah lived long before Christ Jesus. In most generations between Isaiah and John, the voice of God’s Prophets kept a still and dark silence.

Some scholars suggest that the later chapters of Isaiah 40-66, the point of our focus here, may have been written by disciples of Isaiah even into the sixth or fifth century B.C. Even so, would you like to accurately predict a major event in the Year of our Lord, 2500? We marvel at Isaiah’s descriptions of, among other things, the Messiah of Israel to come.

Source: The Center for Bible Studies

A Voice in the Wilderness

Time: First Century A.D

Place: desolate shores of the Jordan river valley.

People: the Essenes, a group of conservative Jews living beyond the liberal power brokers of a less-than-pure King Herod, power-broker between Rome’s legions and various rulers of the Temple of every religious persuasion and varying belief.

Scene: Representatives of Herod’s Temple come to confront John, asking about his authority to preach to crowds of disciples coming to be baptized.

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John 1:

19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him,

“Who are you?”

20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed,

“I am not the Christ.”

21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

And he answered, “No.”

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Powerful religious leaders travel from Jerusalem to interrogate a new rabbi gaining disciples, an odd sort of man living on the wild plants and animals of the desolate places away from the cities of man. Even away from the capital of all religion this becomes a sort of discussion to determine where this John, popular among the people, stands politically with the constantly bickering powerbrokers of the Temple.

Perhaps this chart from the Jewish Virtual Library will help clarify the scene. (It may be helpful for you to understand that King Herod was a Hasmonean ally of Rome.)

Disputes Among the Three Parties

	Sadducees	Pharisees	Essenes
Social Class	Priests, aristocrats	Common people	[Unknown]
Authority	Priests	“Disciples of the Wise”	“Teacher of Righteousness”
Practices	Emphasis on priestly obligations	Application of priestly laws to non-priests	“Inspired Exegesis”
Calendar	Luni-solar	Luni-solar	Solar
Attitude Toward:
Hellenism	For	Selective	Against
Hasmoneans	Opposed usurpation of priesthood by non-Zadokites	Opposed usurpation of monarchy	Personally opposed to Jonathan
Free will	Yes	Mostly	No
Afterlife	None	Resurrection	Spiritual Survival
Bible	Literalist	Sophisticated scholarly interpretations	“Inspired Exegesis”
Oral Torah	No such thing	Equal to Written Torah	“Inspired Exegesis”

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Continuing in the interrogation of John the Baptist as recorded in John 1:

22 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John 1:23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

28 These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The old comfortable times have ended

What is a Prophet like John the Baptist saying by preaching baptism and repentance from a desolate place in the wilderness?

Actually, John preached a repentance needed now, needed in the first century and needed in the days of the Prophet Isaiah. Listen to the prediction of Isaiah 700 years before John.

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 Isaiah 24:

Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate,
and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants…

5 The earth lies defiled
under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed the laws,
violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched,
and few men are left.

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and new things I now declare -Advent 1 – 2016 – To be continued..