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Kashering Cain.

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member


And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

Mark 8:12.​

You gotta be kidding? No sign given to Palestinian Jews in the first century? Heck, even Cain was given a sign (אות). . . Is the speaker implying Palestinian Jews in the first century were worse than Cain?

AND THE LORD SET A SIGN FOR CAIN. R. Judah said: He caused the orb of the sun to shine on his account. Said R. Nehemiah to him: For that wretch He would cause the orb of the sun to shine! Rather, He caused leprosy to break out on him, as you read, And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, etc. (Ex. IV, 8). Rab said: He gave him a dog. Abba Jose said, He made a horn grow out of him. . . R. Levi said in the name of R. Simeon b. Lakish: He suspended his judgment . . ..

Midrash Rabbah, Bere****h, XXII. 11-13.



John
 

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member

And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.

Mark 8:12.​

You gotta be kidding? No sign given to Palestinian Jews in the first century? Heck, even Cain was given a sign (אות). . . Is the speaker implying Palestinian Jews in the first century were worse than Cain?

AND THE LORD SET A SIGN FOR CAIN. R. Judah said: He caused the orb of the sun to shine on his account. Said R. Nehemiah to him: For that wretch He would cause the orb of the sun to shine! Rather, He caused leprosy to break out on him, as you read, And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, etc. (Ex. IV, 8). Rab said: He gave him a dog. Abba Jose said, He made a horn grow out of him. . . R. Levi said in the name of R. Simeon b. Lakish: He suspended his judgment . . ..

Midrash Rabbah, Bere****h, XXII. 11-13.

. . . Since the Cross has become the quintessential sign come out of first century Palestine (no other sign is even close), and since Jews and Gentiles alike have nestled it firmly betwixt their breast, it wouldn't be correct to imply that Jesus is speaking concerning everyone of his "generation," nor even all his Jewish compatriots.

The Greek word γενεά has enough nuance to allow proper exegesis to acknowledge that Jesus is speaking not of his overall generation (Jew and Gentile alike), nor the Jewish "race" as a whole, but only of a particular ethnicity, or religious worldview. . . His statement implies that whereas from the beginning of the epoch of the Fall (fallen mankind), begun with the conception of Cain, a particular sign has been given as the key to God's most seminal intent, now, from Mark 8:12 onward, one particular strain of mankind, one ethnicity, one religious worldview, will have the sign, and its meaning, withheld from them.

Mark 8:12 is a curse. A curse indeed. And a curse orders of magnitude worse, as will be seen, than the curse of Cain, which, the curse of Cain, specifically because of the curse of Mark 8:12, has been errantly read and interpreted by the ethnicity in the cross-hairs of the curse, i.e., those unable to see the significance of the Cross, and therefore unable to interpret the significance of the mark of Cain.



John
 
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