Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam
Well, we've talked about lots of stuff here that is not on the subject of Melchizedek but about who he was/is we have three opinions:
1. a theophany or pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. YHWH appeared many times as the Word/Memra/Logos/Ha-Kavod/Angel or Messenger of the Lord and some folks think Melchizedek was one of them
2. Shem
3. an unknown person with no recorded pedigree who appears in this one incidence and then disappears from the record
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"ON TOPIC", Sam? C'mon, this is AFF.
But you do sum it up nicely. We are left with something of a loose end with this, IMHO. It may well be that the character's ambiguous background is intended to tell a story itself. Is he simply a mysterious individual who appears for the sole duty of recieving tha patriarch Abraham's tithe and then disappearing into the mists of time?
Perhaps the redactors of Genesis, the Sopherim of Ezra's school, simply had no idea about the details either, thus they left them out rather than speculated. The old rabbi's had a habit of "reading what was not said." They felt that the silences were as important and that which was spoken.
Of course, with our Western tradition of rationalism; and modern Bible Fundamentalism despite its complaints to the contrary is very much in the rationalistic tradition; demands that we fill in all of the blanks. Sometimes it's best just to accept the mysteries, again MHO.