The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

After Esdris and his men had been fighting for a long time and were weary, Judas called upon the Lord to show himself their ally and leader in the battle.
Then, raising a battle cry in his ancestral language, and with songs, he charged Gorgias' men when they were not expecting it and put them to flight.
Judas rallied his army and went to the city of Adullam. As the week was ending, they purified themselves according to custom and kept the sabbath there.
On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his men went to gather up the bodies of the slain and bury them with their kinsmen in their ancestral tombs.
But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain.
They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.
Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view;
for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.
But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.
Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.

Otherwise, what will those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

4:44-46. They deliberated what ought to be done with the altar of burnt offerings that had been desecrated. They came up with the good plan to tear it down, lest it be a reproach to them that the Gentiles had defiled it; so they tore down the altar. They stored the stones in a suitable place on the temple mount, until a prophet should come and decide what to do with them.

9:27. A great distress happened in Israel, such as had not happened since the day a prophet had not appeared among them.

14:41. The Jewish people and their priests are pleased that Simon shall be their permanent leader and high priest until a faithful prophet arises.

From Malachi to John the Baptist, no prophet was to be found.

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

I'm not sure we can use absence of evidence as evidence of absence.
By the way, what about Luke 2:

This woman was an 80+ year old prophet when John the Baptist was born.

At the risk of being obvious; John the Baptist was an old testamant Prophet who started his prophetic work after Malachi and ended it before the beginning of the new covenant.

I'm not trying to innovate or use my own interpretation. For the Apocrypha to be scripture, you have to assume the prophets who wrote scripture packed up and moved to Egypt. I

I don't find any evidence that any of the authors of the Apocryphal books were recognized as a prophet when they wrote.

As for it needing to be a prophet to write scripture. We see that no one wrote scripture of his own, but rather it is God breathed writing. If you believe writing God-breathed scripture is not being a prophet, then I guess we just have to disagree.

If you take the Apocrypha as God breathed writing, then I expect you to belong to a group that performs exorcisms using fish guts (Tobit).

I expect you believe God did not create the heavens and the earth from nothing, but rather from formless matter. Wisdom 11:17

And you believe suicide is noble. 2 Mac 14:42.

The English verb “create” captures well the meaning of the Hebrew term in this context. The verb בָּרָא (bara’) always describes the divine activity of fashioning something new, fresh, and perfect. The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing (see, for example, v. 27, where it refers to the creation of man); it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing

As to creating out of nothing, the NET Bible notes for Genesis 1:1 say:


repeating: "The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing"

To suppose that something was in fact present prior to the creation of Genesis one is to speak with no Scriptural support

To suppose that nothing was in fact present prior to the creation of Genesis one is to speak with no Scriptural support

well, couldn't we also say


I see the scripture as silent on the matter.