Luke 2:10, Tidings of Great Joy
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
//You may recognize this verse in its Christmas theme; the baby Jesus brings hope of great joy, which, the verse says, shall be to "all people."
Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians 15:22, echoes a similar sentiment: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
This universal hope is again extended to "all" ... that is, we assume, "all people." Wonderful, isn't it, how all are enveloped in great joy! But is it possible that even "all people" is too restrictive? Luke's verse could be more literally translated as "all flesh." After all, here is the promise, back in the Old Testament book of Joel:
Joel 2:28, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.
Not just people, but all flesh. Animals, too, perhaps. But what about the plant kingdom? Back to Joel, a few verses prior to this, about that wonderful day:
Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things. Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
Makes me wonder if perhaps even Universal Christians aren't universal enough!
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//You may recognize this verse in its Christmas theme; the baby Jesus brings hope of great joy, which, the verse says, shall be to "all people."
Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians 15:22, echoes a similar sentiment: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
This universal hope is again extended to "all" ... that is, we assume, "all people." Wonderful, isn't it, how all are enveloped in great joy! But is it possible that even "all people" is too restrictive? Luke's verse could be more literally translated as "all flesh." After all, here is the promise, back in the Old Testament book of Joel:
Joel 2:28, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.
Not just people, but all flesh. Animals, too, perhaps. But what about the plant kingdom? Back to Joel, a few verses prior to this, about that wonderful day:
Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things. Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
Makes me wonder if perhaps even Universal Christians aren't universal enough!
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May 09, 2012 07:15AM
Another comment - "bring good tidings" (which is found in Isaiah 40:9) is a single word, whereas the Greek as "announce" followed by "great joy/happiness." Assuming for a minute that Luke, the Greek physician, had access to texts (oral or written) based on Hebrew, there would be a necessity to add "great joy" because it not implicit in the Greek as in the Hebrew. There is an important phrase in Post-Biblical Hebrew /besorot tovot yeshuot ve-nehamot/ recited by observant Jews in the Grace After Meal - literally "good tidings, salvations, and consolations." Salvations is yeshuot, and Consolations is nehamot. Why the plural? Perhaps parallel plurals are more poetic. But had the singular been used (because what are salvations, in the plural?), it would have been Yesh'ah. It is possible that the plurals were added in the Talmudic (even Mishnaic) period to avoid confounding people, who would not see yeshu'ah as "salvation", but Yeshua' - As for
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(carried over from the previous comment), 'consolations.' a more sensible singular might make more sense, but the Hebrew can also mean "consoling comfort," as well as "consolation." Again, the plural would avoid common people confounding the abstract noun with the Paraclete.
PS I neglected to add that the entire phrase in that Grace is "May the Almighty send us Elijah, who will bring us good tidings, etc. That Elijah the Prophet is mentioned cannot be overlooked.
Phil, I found your comments insightful, so I copied them to my blog under this post. I hope that's ok!
I have no problem, Lee. I am still an unbaptized Jew who like to find subversive things. (After, Jesus Himself was highly subversive in what He taught in His day. Indeed, it took be a while before those scales figuratively fell from my eyes! (THIS you cannot publish on your blog.)
lol...too late, I already cut-and-paste, and the darn thing won't let me delete it now!
No problem! I look and I am not ID'ed in depth. BTW, are you acquainted with a Fundy Evangelical preacher named Michael L Brown? He and I were in grad school together. We've fallen out of touch, sad to say. (He's got some fire-breathin' hell-fire videos on YouTube)
j/k...and no, I haven't heard of M.L. Brown. A little hell-fire can be entertaining, though.
Brother Mike is well over six foot and was known as "Bear" in his druggie days, before he was saved, for the sheer amount of drugs he could take before getting stoned.As for my comments, I plan to work them up for an article I might get published in a Messianic Jewish magazine - and thereby get my butt in a sling.
