by jimwalton » Sat Nov 19, 2022 9:53 pm
I believe you are completely mistaken. A common theme in the Gospels is that Jesus was sent by the Father, and subsequently He calls people to Himself to send them out to a hurting world who need to hear His message of life and salvation. There is nothing in Jesus's teachings or Luke's Gospel to lead us to an astrological metaphor in this case, or any case. And even the theory in your link is contrived; they have to insert Pleiades rather than a planet to try to make it work.
It's true that the Bible uses numbers with significance. "72" occurs elsewhere in the Bible representing the totality of nations, a theme that is consistently Lukan.
You pick on Scorpions and Serpents, but selectively ignore lambs among wolves, not taking purse or sandals, and the message of peace to fit your theory. Instead, according to Occam's Razor, a much simpler explanation wins the day: Jesus is sending out 72 disciples (72 symbolizing that His desire is to bring salvation to all nations), and they bring a message of peace and salvation.
As far as the disciples' mention of trampling on snakes and scorpions, it is a figure of warfare between two kingdom and the superiority of the one whom the disciples represent. It's a figure of sovereignty over disorder. Craig Keener writes, "The protection Jesus promises is similar to that which God had sometimes promised in the OT (Dt. 8.15; Ps. 91.13; for scorpions as a metaphor for human obstacles to one’s call, see Ezk. 2.6). Here serpents, sometimes associated with Satan, demons or magic, probably represent Satan’s hosts."
I believe you are completely mistaken. A common theme in the Gospels is that Jesus was sent by the Father, and subsequently He calls people to Himself to send them out to a hurting world who need to hear His message of life and salvation. There is nothing in Jesus's teachings or Luke's Gospel to lead us to an astrological metaphor in this case, or any case. And even the theory in your link is contrived; they have to insert Pleiades rather than a planet to try to make it work.
It's true that the Bible uses numbers with significance. "72" occurs elsewhere in the Bible representing the totality of nations, a theme that is consistently Lukan.
You pick on Scorpions and Serpents, but selectively ignore lambs among wolves, not taking purse or sandals, and the message of peace to fit your theory. Instead, according to Occam's Razor, a much simpler explanation wins the day: Jesus is sending out 72 disciples (72 symbolizing that His desire is to bring salvation to all nations), and they bring a message of peace and salvation.
As far as the disciples' mention of trampling on snakes and scorpions, it is a figure of warfare between two kingdom and the superiority of the one whom the disciples represent. It's a figure of sovereignty over disorder. Craig Keener writes, "The protection Jesus promises is similar to that which God had sometimes promised in the OT (Dt. 8.15; Ps. 91.13; for scorpions as a metaphor for human obstacles to one’s call, see Ezk. 2.6). Here serpents, sometimes associated with Satan, demons or magic, probably represent Satan’s hosts."