Midrash

[Bingley]

I have no idea where I should be posting this, but it was on this forum that the word came up again, so I'm posting it here.

What is a midrash?

I assume it's not what a good friend of mine gets when she uses the wrong soap.[/end facetious remark]

[Treasure the Questions]

That woud be a mild rash, Bingley.:P

Try some of these http://www.google.com/search?site=midrash&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=vss&q=midrash

[CaDan]

Here's a pretty good Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash) article.

[Toney]

In Judaism, the verb is the style by which sacred stories were expanded, new meanings were discovered, and the sacred past was rediscovered in the present. All four Gospels use midrashic principles to establish Jesus in the Jewish epic.

Take the Marcan narrative on the baptism of Jesus for example, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." These words are lifted from Isaiah 42:1 (Here is my servant...) and the Psalms, 2:7 (He said to me, "You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.)

The style has little, if anything, to do with historical accuracy and is concerned with meaning and understanding. For this reason, some of us who post here encourage the reading of the Gospels through a Jewish lens, since that is the way they were intended to be understood and indeed is the only way they can be fully understood.

[Treasure the Questions]

Thanks for the link, CaDan. It's very interesting.

Glad you asked the question, Bingley.

:thumbsup:

[elyonmishpat]

Midrash is actually part of the acronym PaRDeS which is an interpretation system that is part of Jewish mysticism known as kabbalah. It not based on a Scriptural premise, but on a man made system to find deeper revelation into the "mysteries" of God's Word.

Drash is the third level of interpretion or is sometimes called - midrash.

P - pasha - surface text understanding
R - remetz - hidden application of other Biblical texts to get understanding
D - drash - use of stories or parables
S - sod - deepest level of interpretation by use of the mystical system, often referred to as the holy spirit - however; this holy spirit [ruach ha kodesh] is the feminine spirit of Yahweh - not the Biblical definition of the Spirit of the God

[McCravey]

I believe in the deep and symbolic meanings of the scriptures....the midrash, if you will. The symbolic is obvious to me and I comment on it often. The Bible is absolutely packed with signs, symbols, types, parables, hidden messages, etc. But not only in our Bible...the world is also full of them. With practice you can see them around you everywhere.

I would like to refer to the following passage.....2Cr 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

The actual literal, written meaning of the words have no life in them. Oh, it is good for instruction etc. but it is not life giving. It is the spirit of the words that give life....IO the hidden meaning, the deeper meaning. Which is why is differ from most of the fundamentals. They get tied up in the literal meaning of the words they read, and they don't see the deeper meaning.

[Bingley]

Thanks for the info all.