Who are the 144,000?

[Samael_Khan]

I wouldn't put too much stock in the separation. It just means they were raptured in separate events.

I would agree with that. But I do think that the differences between the two groups are relevent.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

144 = 9 x 18, if it matters to you. I don't know. I'm just guessing and horsing about, since I don't really trust anybody's assurances about 9 meaning this or that. They used to tell me 7 was the number of new beginnings, but it was apparently just some pat answer to keep me from being further interested and make the minister sound smarter than me.

I see numbers in Scripture all have a deeper meaning.

The Bab had 18 Letters of the Living, they were all out searching for the promised one and each had to find him unaided, to which they all did.

Letters of the Living - Wikipedia

To me the number 9 represents the One consciousness, I see it represents all Gods Messengers.

Regards Tony

 

[Salvador]

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand. (Revelation 7:4) "This symbolizes all people who acknowledge the Lord [Jesus Christ] as God of heaven and earth and are governed by truths of doctrine springing from the goodness of love, received from Him through the Word [the Bible].

These are symbolized by the number 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel because the twelve tribes of Israel symbolize a church that consists of people who possess goodness and truth from the Lord and acknowledge Him as God of heaven and earth. The number 144,000 means all such. For that number has the same symbolism as the number twelve, since it is the product of twelve times twelve, which is then multiplied by 1000; and any number multiplied by itself and then by 10, 100, or 1000, has the same symbolism as the original number. Thus the number 144,000 has the same symbolism as 144, and this the same symbolism as twelve, as 144 is the product of twelve times twelve. Similarly, the product of the 12,000 sealed from each tribe times twelve is 144,000.

The number twelve means, symbolically, all, and is predicated of truths springing from goodness, because twelve is the product of three times four, and the number three symbolizes everything connected with truth, and the number four, everything connected with good. Thus the number twelve here symbolizes everything connected with truth that springs from the goodness of love."

Apocalypse Revealed #348 Emanuel Swedenborg

 

[leov]

I don't think there is anything about an elder bother in the 144,000 or anything about the 144,000 in the prodigal parable.

Elder brother has never left the father, that is God’s own pneumatic nature, younger brother went to another world (material world where people tend unclean pigs) and was dead, spiritually dead, return to the father, that is psychic nature.

 

[The Anointed]

Moses had been dead 900 years before Deuteronomy was written.. I'd take quotations with a grain of salt.

In the biblical Books of Kings ( 2 Kings 18:4 ), the Nehushtan (or Nohestan) is the derogatory name given to the bronze serpent on a pole first described in the Book of Numbers, which God told Moses to erect to so that the Israelites who saw it would be protected from dying from the bites...

What utter rubbish your head must be filled with. What on earth makes you think that Moses had been dead 900 years before the book of Deuteronomy was written.

 

[sooda]

What utter rubbish your head must be filled with. What on earth makes you think that Moses had been dead 900 years before the book of Deuteronomy was written.

The book of Deuteronomy was written during the seventh-century-BCE reign of King Josiah.

DEUTERONOMY - JewishEncyclopedia.com
jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5132-deuteronomy
It is the unanimous opinion of modern critics that Deuteronomy is not the work of Moses, but that it was, in its main parts, written in the seventh century B.C., either during the reign of Manasseh, or during that of Josiah (but before his eighteenth year, the Book of the Law found in that year in theTemple [see II Kings xxii.-xxiii.] clearly containing Deuteronomy, if indeed it included anything more). The reasons for …

 

[The Anointed]

The book of Deuteronomy was written during the seventh-century-BCE reign of King Josiah.

DEUTERONOMY - JewishEncyclopedia.com
jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5132-deuteronomy
It is the unanimous opinion of modern critics that Deuteronomy is not the work of Moses, but that it was, in its main parts, written in the seventh century B.C., either during the reign of Manasseh, or during that of Josiah (but before his eighteenth year, the Book of the Law found in that year in theTemple [see II Kings xxii.-xxiii.] clearly containing Deuteronomy, if indeed it included anything more). The reasons for …

The Book of the Law of God is called the Pentateuch The first 5 books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

In 2 Kings 22; in the days of King Josiah, the book of the law (Which included the book of Deuteronomy which was originally written by Moses) was found in the Temple, which King Josiah had ordered to be repaired. It had fallen into ruin, and had been filled with objects of Pagan worship, because God’s Son the Israelites, who he had called out of Egypt, had turned their back on their God and had begun worshiping foreign Pagan gods.

But in 587 B.C., Solomon's Temple, which, according to Josephus the Historian, had stood for 470 years 6 months and ten days, from its construction in 1057 B.C., which construction, according to 1 Kings 6:1; began 480 years after God had called his Son ‘Israel’ out of Egypt, was sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar’s troops, and all the scrolls, and objects of no worth to those troops, went up in flames.

Thank God for the Hebrew oral tradition, of handing down those books orally from generation to generation, they were able to be rewritten during the Babylonian exile.

 

[sooda]

The Book of the Law of God is called the Pentateuch The first 5 books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

In 2 Kings 22; in the days of King Josiah, the book of the law (Which included the book of Deuteronomy which was originally written by Moses) was found in the Temple, which King Josiah had ordered to be repaired. It had fallen into ruin, and had been filled with objects of Pagan worship, because God’s Son the Israelites, who he had called out of Egypt, had turned their back on their God and had begun worshiping foreign Pagan gods.

But in 587 B.C., Solomon's Temple, which, according to Josephus the Historian, had stood for 470 years 6 months and ten days, from its construction in 1057 B.C., which construction, according to 1 Kings 6:1; began 480 years after God had called his Son ‘Israel’ out of Egypt, was sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar’s troops, and all the scrolls, and objects of no worth to those troops, went up in flames.

Thank God for the Hebrew oral tradition, of handing down those books orally from generation to generation, they were able to be rewritten during the Babylonian exile.

They didn't have an oral tradition prior to the exile in Babylon. That's where the Jews learned the Babylonian myths they borrowed for Genesis and Exodus.

 

[The Anointed]

They didn't have an oral tradition prior to the exile in Babylon. That's where the Jews learned the Babylonian myths they borrowed for Genesis and Exodus.

More unsupported unadulterated rubbish.

Torah - Wikipedia

The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the written books were a product of the Babylonian captivity (c. 6th century BCE), BASED ON EARLIER WRITTEN SOURCES AND ORAL TRADITION, and that it was completed with final revisions during the post-Exilic period (c. 5th century BCE).[

 

[IndigoChild5559]

144,000 is a fictitious group given a figurative blessed number. Twelve is a blessed number in Judaism. There are the twelve tribes of Israel, for example. 12 squared is 144. Go from there. This passage is not meant to be taken literally. It is apocalyptic literature.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

They didn't have an oral tradition prior to the exile in Babylon. That's where the Jews learned the Babylonian myths they borrowed for Genesis and Exodus.

This is simply not true. Oral tradition would have HAD to exist, as there are some things that simply could not have occurred without an oral tradition to explain Torah. Let me give a few examples.

1. Hebrew text contains no vowels. Whatever sacred texts they did have, would have to have had an oral tradition to know what words to read, as many words have the same consonant root.

2. There had to be some agreement on what was considered forbidden work on the Shabbat, so that Jewish courts could enforce the law. You could have one person saying, "Oh well, walking isn't work, I can walk 15 miles and its not work," and another one saying, "I get exhausted after a couple of miles; walking three miles or more is work."

3. The Torah states that meat has to be slaughtered a certain way to be lawful, but doesn't describe what that way is. There MUST be an oral tradition to tell us what lawful slaughter is.

That's just three examples. I could give a gazillion. But you get the idea. There is no law without case law.

 

[Muffled]

Elder brother has never left the father, that is God’s own pneumatic nature, younger brother went to another world (material world where people tend unclean pigs) and was dead, spiritually dead, return to the father, that is psychic nature.

I believe that has no bearing on the 144,000. The 144,000 are saved whether they became prodigal or not.

 

[sooda]

What utter rubbish your head must be filled with. What on earth makes you think that Moses had been dead 900 years before the book of Deuteronomy was written.

Neither Moses nor Abraham were real people.

"The question of historical accuracy in the story of Exodus has occupied scholars since the beginning of modern research," says Prof. Finkelstein. "Most have searched for the historical and archaeological evidence in the Late Bronze Age, the 13th century BCE, partly because the story mentions the city of Ramses, and because at the end of that century an Egyptian document referred to a group called ’Israel‘ in Canaan. However, there is no archaeological evidence of the story itself, in either Egypt or Sinai, and what has been perceived as historical evidence from Egyptian sources can be interpreted differently. Moreover, the Biblical story does not demonstrate awareness of the political situation in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age – a powerful Egyptian administration that could have handled an invasion of groups from the desert. Additionally, many of the details in the Biblical story fit better with a later period in the history of Egypt, around the 7-6th centuries BCE – roughly the time when the Biblical story as we know it today was put into writing.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Neither Moses nor Abraham were real people.

"The question of historical accuracy in the story of Exodus has occupied scholars since the beginning of modern research," says Prof. Finkelstein. "Most have searched for the historical and archaeological evidence in the Late Bronze Age, the 13th century BCE, partly because the story mentions the city of Ramses, and because at the end of that century an Egyptian document referred to a group called ’Israel‘ in Canaan. However, there is no archaeological evidence of the story itself, in either Egypt or Sinai, and what has been perceived as historical evidence from Egyptian sources can be interpreted differently. Moreover, the Biblical story does not demonstrate awareness of the political situation in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age – a powerful Egyptian administration that could have handled an invasion of groups from the desert. Additionally, many of the details in the Biblical story fit better with a later period in the history of Egypt, around the 7-6th centuries BCE – roughly the time when the Biblical story as we know it today was put into writing.

Deuteronomy tells the story of Moses death. He can't write that himself. Besides it duplicates things from other books, so considering it to be written later is just smart.

What utter rubbish your head must be filled with. What on earth makes you think that Moses had been dead 900 years before the book of Deuteronomy was written.

That's a little harsh and ignorant, two things which go together well.

 

[sooda]

Deuteronomy tells the story of Moses death. He can't write that himself. Besides it duplicates things from other books, so considering it to be written later is just smart.

That's a little harsh and ignorant, two things which go together well.

Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written during and after the Babylonian exile.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written during and after the Babylonian exile.

Most likely, yes. I wouldn't have believed it forty years ago. It didn't fit into what I had been told. Something much more important I didn't know was that it was based on principles, and I needed to know what those principles were. Those principles are still with us, and we still need to determine when and how to apply them. That has not changed though we are not Jews. The importance, too, has only grown now that these have become windows into the past to see that modern ideas are not modern at all. Freedom, women's rights and things that like that are old ideas, but these ideas don't easily find space in our world. They are like little flowers that show up in the cracks between stones or in the short summer seasons. The ideas behind these books are vastly important, much more important than whether they are written 3,000 or 4,000 years ago. They are a mirror for ourselves and a way of communicating with the past. They are showing their age, though; and many people have misconceptions about what they are for. They're used for superstitious purposes for anything from incantations to political predictions to bad medicine to excuses for laziness and dispassion. At the same time they let us know that the problems and questions we have today are the same ones people used to have, and that is important. Its also important to be able to know what they thought.

 

[The Anointed]

Deuteronomy tells the story of Moses death. He can't write that himself. Besides it duplicates things from other books, so considering it to be written later is just smart.

That's a little harsh and ignorant, two things which go together well.

Let me here repeat my post #47.

. The Book of the Law of God is called the Pentateuch The first 5 books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

In 2 Kings 22; in the days of King Josiah, the book of the law (Which included the book of Deuteronomy which was originally written by Moses) was found in the Temple, which King Josiah had ordered to be repaired. It had fallen into ruin, and had been filled with objects of Pagan worship, because God’s Son the Israelites, who he had called out of Egypt, had turned their back on their God and had begun worshiping foreign Pagan gods.

But in 587 B.C., Solomon's Temple, which, according to Josephus the Historian, had stood for 470 years 6 months and ten days, from its construction in 1057 B.C., which construction, according to 1 Kings 6:1; began 480 years after God had called his Son ‘Israel’ out of Egypt, was sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar’s troops, and all the scrolls, and objects of no worth to those troops, went up in flames.

Thank God for the Hebrew oral tradition, of handing down those books orally from generation to generation, they were able to be rewritten during the Babylonian exile.

Those books were rewritten during the captivity in Babylon, and undoubtedly later information was added, according to their oral tradition.

It was not until some 40 years after the death of Moses, that the 600 Danites who survived the war in which the tribe of Benjamin was exterminated by his brother tribes, took their wives, their children, and all their possessions and moved north into the land of Sidon and killed the peaceful inhabitants of the town of Laish, before occupying it and renaming the town 'DAN.'

And yet in Deuteronomy 34, we read that Moses was shown the whole land of Israel as far north as the town, of Dan, which was not captured by Dan until some 40 years after the death of Moses, which obviously had to be a later addition.

 

[sooda]

Let me here repeat my post #47.

. The Book of the Law of God is called the Pentateuch The first 5 books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

In 2 Kings 22; in the days of King Josiah, the book of the law (Which included the book of Deuteronomy which was originally written by Moses) was found in the Temple, which King Josiah had ordered to be repaired. It had fallen into ruin, and had been filled with objects of Pagan worship, because God’s Son the Israelites, who he had called out of Egypt, had turned their back on their God and had begun worshiping foreign Pagan gods.

But in 587 B.C., Solomon's Temple, which, according to Josephus the Historian, had stood for 470 years 6 months and ten days, from its construction in 1057 B.C., which construction, according to 1 Kings 6:1; began 480 years after God had called his Son ‘Israel’ out of Egypt, was sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar’s troops, and all the scrolls, and objects of no worth to those troops, went up in flames.

Thank God for the Hebrew oral tradition, of handing down those books orally from generation to generation, they were able to be rewritten during the Babylonian exile.

Those books were rewritten during the captivity in Babylon, and undoubtedly later information was added, according to their oral tradition.

It was not until some 40 years after the death of Moses, that the 600 Danites who survived the war in which the tribe of Benjamin was exterminated by his brother tribes, took their wives, their children, and all their possessions and moved north into the land of Sidon and killed the peaceful inhabitants of the town of Laish, before occupying it and renaming the town 'DAN.'

And yet in Deuteronomy 34, we read that Moses was shown the whole land of Israel as far north as the town, of Dan, which was not captured by Dan until some 40 years after the death of Moses, which obviously had to be a later addition.

Both Moses and the Exodus are fiction.

 

[The Anointed]

Both Moses and the Exodus are fiction.

Only according to the biblically ignorant such as yourself and all atheists.

 

[sooda]

Only according to the biblically ignorant such as yourself and all atheists.

Not only are the flood and the Exodus fiction so is the story of Joshua.

Israel had a tiny population and no large armies.

Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City ...
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/ancient...
Jan 11, 2019 · Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000; still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.)

The mention of camels in the OT means the stories were written after the 5th or 6th century BC.

There Were No Camels During Time of Biblical Patriarchs ...
https://time.com/6662/the-mystery-of-the-bibles-phantom-camels
The Bible says that Abraham, along with other patriarchs of Judaism and Christianity, used domesticated camels — as well as donkeys, sheep, oxen and slaves — in his various travels and trade ...