A question about Abel, prophets and Luke 11

[Miri]

Luke 11 suggests Abel was the first prophet on earth, I've never noticed this before.
Would that have made Cain equivalent to a Pharisee who followed man made laws?

Presumably a prophet was needed to communicate the will of God to people due
to the fall right from the start. But then would this also have made Noah, and Joseph
prophets?

Why was that generation going to be held accountable for the deaths of
all the prophets down the generations?


Luke 11:43-52 NKJV
[43] Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and
greetings in the marketplaces. [44] Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are
not aware of them."

[45] Then one of the lawyers answered and said to Him, "Teacher, by saying these
things You reproach us also." [46] And He said, "Woe to you also, lawyers! For
you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the
burdens with one of your fingers. [47] Woe to you! For you build the tombs
of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.

[48] In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers;
for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. [49] Therefore the wisdom
of God also said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they
will kill and persecute,' [50] that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from
the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,

[51] from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar
and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation. [52] "Woe
to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in
yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered."

 

[Miri]

Sorry another comment, (maybe this should be a Cain and Abel thread ).

Cain presented his crops, his harvest etc but his offering was rejected.
I have often heard it said this was because a lamb was required, but
grain offerings were brought to the Lord in Leviticus and Numbers.
God told him sin was crouching at his door.

Maybe Cain's hatred for his brother and jealousy was there long before
the above event and if Cain had been right with God, his grain
offering would have been accepted.

Not sure what others think?

I have often heard the story of Cain and Able told as if Cain got a bit of a
raw deal, but things must have gone far deeper than the limited account in the bible.

 

[Stonemason]

"Why was that generation going to be held accountable for the deaths of all the prophets down the generations?"

Lawyers, high priests and other high-social-rank individuals were generally Sadducees. These men didn't venerate Tanakh prophets or their works and thus, could be said, "killed them". Jesus was the culmination, the end result, of messianic prophetic declaration. That "generation of Sadducees" was the last, because after the destruction of the second temple there were no more Sadducees, as there was no more place for the "righteous ones of Tzadok". Jesus knew all this was going to happen and relayed it through a number of parables.

 

[valiant]

"Why was that generation going to be held accountable for the deaths of all the prophets down the generations?"

Lawyers, high priests and other high-social-rank individuals were generally Sadducees. These men didn't venerate Tanakh prophets or their works and thus, could be said, "killed them". Jesus was the culmination, the end result, of messianic prophetic declaration. That "generation of Sadducees" was the last, because after the destruction of the second temple there were no more Sadducees, as there was no more place for the "righteous ones of Tzadok". Jesus knew all this was going to happen and relayed it through a number of parables.

I doubt whether most lawyers were Sadducees. Most would be Scribes of the Pharisees.

 

[Stonemason]

I doubt whether most lawyers were Sadducees. Most would be Scribes of the Pharisees.

I understand you want to say "scribes" or "sofer", but they were not "of the Pharisees", and they didn't do "lawyer" law. A better argument would be a "standout", educated Pharisee, but that doesn't figure with the rest of the text. For example, Sadducees, traditionally, didn't believe in afterlife, and Luke 11:52 discusses this.

 

[prove-all]

Presumably a prophet was needed to communicate the will of God
to people due to the fall right from the start. But then would this
also have made Noah, and Joseph prophets?

yes on Noah, and Joseph where prophets

These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man
and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark;
for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person,
a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them,
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

 

[prove-all]

Joseph, son of Jacob (Israel),

was he Imhotep, of Egyptian History maybe ?
https://theegyptianidentityofjoseph...jacob-israel-was-imhotep-of-egyptian-history/

 

[HeRoseFromTheDead]

Luke 11 suggests Abel was the first prophet on earth, I've never noticed this before.
Would that have made Cain equivalent to a Pharisee who followed man made laws?

Presumably a prophet was needed to communicate the will of God to people due
to the fall right from the start. But then would this also have made Noah, and Joseph
prophets?

Why was that generation going to be held accountable for the deaths of
all the prophets down the generations?

Cain was pharisee in the sense that he sought to be justified by works (as many pharisees did) instead of by faith (like Abel did).

Yes, Noah and Joseph were prophets.

The generation that received Jesus' judgment represented the fullness of iniquity of those who opposed GOD because they rejected and killed the representation of GOD himself.

 

[Stonemason]

Joseph, son of Jacob (Israel),

was he Imhotep, of Egyptian History maybe ?
https://theegyptianidentityofjoseph...jacob-israel-was-imhotep-of-egyptian-history/

...I just typed out a really long history report, but then scrapped it because no one is probably interested. Around 1650bc would have been a more appropriate time frame for Jacob and Joseph. There were semitic kings in Egypt, we now call "Hyksos".

 

[Stonemason]

Cain was pharisee in the sense that he sought to be justified by works (as many pharisees did) instead of by faith (like Abel did).

Yes, Noah and Joseph were prophets.

The generation that received Jesus' judgment represented the fullness of iniquity of those who opposed GOD because they rejected and killed the representation of GOD himself.

Pharisees didn't exist until the mid-second-century bc, around 150bc or so, after the Maccabees.

edit: and I don't understand this emphasis on "works". I see what you mean, but that isn't a "defining feature" of "Pharisee", rather a cited difference between they and the understanding of other factions. They were actually pretty spiritual.

 

[prove-all]

...I just typed out a really long history report, but then scrapped it because no one is probably interested. Around 1650bc would have been a more appropriate time frame for Jacob and Joseph. There were semitic kings in Egypt, we now call "Hyksos".

I am not that good in this time frame, came across this link awhile back,

and asked if anyone on forum could confirm or refute it before.

I do not know if this info is correct, any help welcome.

so you think this is not the same person then?

 

[Stonemason]

I am not that good in this time frame, came across this link awhile back,

and asked if anyone on forum could confirm or refute it before.

I do not know if this info is correct, any help welcome.

so you think this is not the same person then?

No, because Imhotep's reign was really far in the past.(2600ish bc) Contrasted to what was going on in Canaan (Ammorites were eeking out a meager existence in small communities), Sumeria where Sumerians still ruled, Sargon of Akkad (arguably Nimrud) had not yet conquered and established semitic control of the tigris-euphrates river valley (24th or 23rd century bc depending on reckoning), Babylon had not yet been founded yet (because Nimrud did it). Abram, a semitic, bouncing between Canaan and Egypt, having any contact with an Egyptian ruler, would have been somewhere closer to 19th-18th century bc, and so his kids/grandkids etc... and this is where we start to see semitic culture and influence taking control in lower (northern) Egypt, what we now know as Hyksos.

 

[Stonemason]

Much before 19th century bc, Abram would have wandered near Egypt, Egyptians wouldn't have cared what he said, they would have taken his women and killed him. It's not really realistic to envision "some Canaanite guy, originally from Ur, a semitic speaker in any event", just passing through and everyone being cool with this.

 

[HeRoseFromTheDead]

Pharisees didn't exist until the mid-second-century bc, around 150bc or so, after the Maccabees.

edit: and I don't understand this emphasis on "works". I see what you mean, but that isn't a "defining feature" of "Pharisee", rather a cited difference between they and the understanding of other factions. They were actually pretty spiritual.

That's why I said Cain was a pharisee in the sense...

There's no witness in scripture of pharisees being spiritual except in Acts where it is said that some became believers. But even then they were more focused on law than Christ. To be focused on law is carnal, to be focused on Christ is spiritual.

 

[Stonemason]

That's why I said Cain was a pharisee in the sense...

There's no witness in scripture of pharisees being spiritual except in Acts where it is said that some became believers. But even then they were more focused on law than Christ. To be focused on law is carnal, to be focused on Christ is spiritual.

Pharisees, by and large, believed in Tanakh. Are you thinking this isn't spiritual? This is exactly the understanding Jesus and his followers had, in Daniel, Isaiah, etc. You realize these were all Jews, right? Jesus' following was more of something of a "Jewish Jesus cult" (Messianic Jews?), until they were given the identity later, by the Romans, of "Christians" as an epithet to distinguish them "from other Jews".

 

[HeRoseFromTheDead]

Pharisees, by and large, believed in Tanakh. Are you thinking this isn't spiritual? This is exactly the understanding Jesus and his followers had, in Daniel, Isaiah, etc. You realize these were all Jews, right? Jesus' following was more of something of a "Jewish Jesus cult" (Messianic Jews?), until they were given the identity later, by the Romans, of "Christians" as an epithet to distinguish them "from other Jews".

No, I don't think that is spiritual. Believing in the bible isn't spiritual. Believing in Christ is spiritual. Believing in the bible doesn't save anyone.

You search the scriptures because you think that you have eternal life in them, and it is these that testify about me. And you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. John 5:39-40​

 

[Stonemason]

Well, that's an interesting perspective, believing in God and an afterlife "isn't spiritual". Honestly, most of the Pharisees didn't have an education and couldn't read the Tanakh. I... don't know much of what else to say. I guess it doesn't matter that much now that we have Christ.

 

[HeRoseFromTheDead]

Well, that's an interesting perspective, believing in God and an afterlife "isn't spiritual". Honestly, most of the Pharisees didn't have an education and couldn't read the Tanakh. I... don't know much of what else to say. I guess it doesn't matter that much now that we have Christ.

The pharisees believed in GOD and the afterlife. Christ said they were of the devil.

 

[Kaycie]

Today we are all considered priests in Christ, even though we are not all ministers who preach in the pulpit. Still we all bring a message from God- a message of love and of the gospel that saves. In the same way, Abel had a message from God. He was definitely loving and righteous.

Cain knew what he was doing wrong, and it was an ongoing thing, not a one time thing. God even said to him, "If you do right will you not be accepted?" If God wanted a lamb sacrifice, Cain could have traded Abel some grain for a lamb. All I know is that Cain knew the good he ought to do, but chose not to do it. His heart was full of evil, bitterness, and rage. He had a good influence in Abel, yet did not respond to it favorably.

 

[Stonemason]

Jesus felt their understanding was corrupt because they didn't accept Him. That's true. Had they the true nature of sight and understanding, they'd have realized and believed, but they were a little too caught up in their daily lives and the ways of the world. They still had very similar beliefs, same scriptures, same concepts, they believed messiah "would come". They weren't as, like, Jezebel and Ahab praying to Melquart, or Romans praying to Mars, though. He was trying to push them off the fence and make them "get it" and they would not budge.

There are alot of people like this today. I suppose in some other conversation we'd have "fake christians", like people who believe in Jesus' sacrifice and divinity but don't go to church and don't witness well, and "real christians" who go to your church and argue on bible chat threads. Perspective is just... perspective.