One of the primary purposes of this site is to reveal the Scriptures to you within the mindset and culture of the ancient Hebrew people God gave it to in the first place.
What I discovered in my studies is that many of the basic premises of the ancient Israelite way of thinking are totally the opposite of how gentile Christians think.
Achieving a proper grasp of these differences will enable you to not only bridge the huge gap that exists between Jewish and Gentile believers with regards to the Mosaic Law but also give you much deeper insight into the New Testament, especially the often misunderstood Book of Romans.
Again, understand before I can even begin to get into the details of all the intricate laws and commands that are introduced starting from Exodus chapter 21, I need to deal with the issue of the ancient Hebrew mindset first, because it serves as the backdrop or foundation upon which these laws of God are built.
So let’s get started by going into THE BIGGEST difference between the mindset of the Old Testament Israelites and the modern gentile believer.
The biggest difference between the ancient Hebrews and gentile Christians are their perspectives on death and the afterlife.
For the Old Testament Israelites, what happened after death was of little importance to them.
They paid little attention to heaven or eternity, especially as it pertained to a place where they might end up residing in someday.
For them, it was the here and now that was the most important.
By comparison, the gentile Christian is super focused on the subject of death and the afterlife.
I’m sure you’ve heard the cliche saying that “Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good”.
The idea being expressed is that believers are so concerned about getting into heaven that their time here on earth becomes secondary.
For Christians, the primary goal is to obtain what they call “eternal security”.
They have this tendency to focus on the hope of an eternal future with God in heaven as a result of a decision they made for Christ while here on earth.
This focus and mindset is far different than that of the ancient Hebrews.
The ancient Hebrews focused primarily on the present.
They believed that whatever reward or blessings they would receive from God occurred during their life here on earth and were based on their daily obedience to God’s commands.
So quite different to how we modern believers think, the ancient Israelite’s ideal was to live out his natural life span to its fullest.
They weren’t afraid about what happened AFTER death, rather they wanted to avoid a premature death.
In the Bible, the phrase used to refer to a “premature death” is “to be cut off”.
And it refers to one’s life ending abruptly due to sickness, being murdered, dying in war, or an accident etcetera.
Regardless of how a premature death occurred, it was generally considered to be the result of a judgment from God due to wickedness and unrighteous living.
And understand that to the Hebrew mind, unrighteous living meant only one thing: disobedience to the Laws and Commands of God.
To their way of thinking, a long life was the blessing received for obeying God’s commands and a shortened life was the curse one received for disobeying God’s commands.
No further afterlife consequences for sin were contemplated, because for the most part, death was seen as the end of existence.
From this, we can also see that their obedience to the Law had NOTHING to do with earning their salvation.
First, this was because, as I just mentioned, they didn’t harbor notions of going to heaven after death.
And second, they already knew they were saved and part of God’s chosen people.
The only question now was would they be blessed or cursed by God in this lifetime based on their obedience or disobedience to His Law.
Whenever we come across the biblical phrase “they breathed their last and were gathered to their fathers”, it means that that person had lived to a ripe old age and thus were blessed by God.
Interestingly, this phrase also reflects some remaining ideas of ancestor worship beliefs, the idea that in some hazy, undefined way, one’s essence might be able to commune with their ancestors after death.
In my next post, I’ll be going into the underlying reasons why the ancient Hebrews believed the way they did.
I believe that the problem lay in the mistranslation of the word “eternal life” an ideum. This wording is a concept and not a description of “living forever”. It is a concept which cannot be translated word for word. I remember a funny thing which happened in German language class. I asked how to say “hot dog” in German. I was told “frankfooter”, because you cannot translate word for word. I said its easy, “hies” is hot and dog is “der hind”. A hiesderhund! The teacher laughed and said I just asked for a “dog in heat”. The same problem exist with eternal life. The concept is “Fullness and Richness of Life, mentally, emotionally, a spiritually and physically which never ends or has no end”. This is what people were asking Jesus about. The context of every conversation was about fullness of life. The translators did not pick up on the meaning of the “ideum”, a concept built within the discussion or text. Translating it word for word has created a “Pie in the sky faith” detached from the reality of the scripture.
Interesting insight shared. Actually, the definition of eternal life that you provided: “Fullness and Richness of Life, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically which never ends or has no end” is actually pretty close to the meaning of the Hebrew word Shalom.
The definition came from Deuteronomy 28:1-14. I was looking for the OT parallel of eternal life. I reasoned that there is nothing new under the sun, so eternal life must be found in the OT. The key was found when the rich young ruler asked Jesus for eternal life. Jesus answered with, “Are you following the 10C”. I thought that was strange. Why would Jesus answer him with the 10C for a NT concept of eternal life. I then went to Deuteronomy 28:1-14 and found my answer. Deut. is dealing with a “Full and Rich life without end”. I then understood that the young man was not asking how to live forever but, how to be happy. His riches were not doing the job. ie: the American dream. I then went and applied that concept to every passage people asked Jesus for Life and it fit. The modern concept of “Pie in the sky” had alienated the rest of the passages and context of Jesus teachings. The idea of eternal life just never fit the rest of what Jesus taught, now it did. No one was looking how to live forever. The OT never addresses it, so why would the NT? This Life starts here and never ends even after we die. Yes! Peace in every area of Life.
The Gospel [Good News} was that God would take care of all your needs within His Kingdom. Don’t worry about what you will wear, eat and drink does not God supply the birds and King Solomon was not even dressed as nice as the lilies. The modern gospel [receive Jesus as your savior and you won’t go to hell] is not found anywhere in the Gospels. I give people a challenge. Find that gospel anywhere in the Gospels. They come back to me a couple weeks later and say,”What did you do to us, we can’t find the gospel the church teaches”. The Good News was deliverance from every evil work no matter what ever form it took. Jesus was teaching directly from Deuteronomy 28:1-14.
Also the word “Saved” makes perfect sense in light of Deuteronomy 28. Verses 15 and on deal with the curse of not obeying God.
Great and interesting insights shared!