|
There are two traditional views held by British-Israel, Identity and Anglo-Israel groups, to explain the �Two Sticks� part of the Book of Ezekiel - Based on the understanding that the Book of Ezekiel is still yet to be fulfilled - somewhere in the future the two houses/kingdoms of Judah and Israel will be joined together again and return to Palestine. Another one is that when James VI of Scots also became James I of England and joined the two crowns - that this was a fulfillment of the prophecy of the two sticks. (Basically this left out a large portion of modern Israel on the mainland of Europe - i.e. The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, France, Germany, Ireland etc., etc.). Unfortunately for these two views is that they are denied by heraldic evidence. Another view says that the gathering of Israel and Judah after the two sticks are joined, will actually be in the United States of America or that the joining of the two sticks is America or will be in America.
Even another view argues that the two sticks represent Judaism and Christianity and the joining thereof, another the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and even another based on the establishment of the Zionist State of Israeli in Palestine in the year 1948. One writer also argued that the USA had to be politically united with the British Empire once again for the fulfillment to come about. Another view is that it represents the possible joining of religious denominations (sometimes proposed in a spiritual sense). The list is endless! In fact the whole book is interpreted by many as if what Ezekiel wrote is a prophecy yet to be realised, in a Zionist view or a Millennial view - the typical Futurist or Dispensational view.
However there is another argument that it is pre-Christian or of the pre-Christian era, and should be understood as �WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN� - rather than �WHAT IS YET TO BE�.
The late Thomas Whitehouse of the United Kingdom of Great Britain wrote a delightful book (published by the BIWF in the UK) that showed that the compilers of the Bible incorrectly arranged the order of chapters of the Book of Ezekiel - thus they are not in the correct chronological order. It also argued that the Zionist and Millennial interpretation is flawed, as these views took the thesis out of context and created a new pretext. He showed that the Book of Ezekiel is �Pre-Christian� - which means that we have to re-think some of our most treasured ideas - that sometimes started out as theory, but have unfortunately ended up as dogma.
He also showed that Ezekiel presented to the Houses of Israel and Judah a conditional constitution that would only come into effect if they repented and �joined together� in Palestine as one nation again. The details of the Temple and sacrifices and political order have to be seen only in the historic context of Ezekiel�s book and the times he lived in. The other issues regarding Ezekiel�s book that will come out of Thomas Whitehouse�s little book should be viewed in the historic context of Ezekiel�s time frame.
It is this writer�s opinion that because Ezekiel�s book has been taken out of context - historically and textually - a large number of conflicting theories have been presented. Some have been developed with definite political bias of the period in which they were first formulated - which can be understood in some respects, as we have a tendency to interpret world events from our nationalistic perspectives.
Thomas Whitehouse has done us a great service in putting his thesis into writing - but unfortunately his little book has been almost totally forgotten. Claude Coffin in 1951 understood the argument well and even in 1986, the last printing of the book, it was known - but sadly either ignored or just forgotten - until now!
The challenge of this Discussion Paper is the same as the last three Discussion Papers put out by the Historic Research Group - check out your pet dogma to see if it is historically verifiable - or are they held because of political and nationalistic bias. If it is not then we need to revisit them again and find out where the errors were made and correct them - otherwise people will rightly ridicule our arguments as being as valid as the flat earth theory or the theory of evolution. Then we go the way of the Dodo.
[It is very important that the printed book or eBook by Thomas Whitehouse - Ezekiel�s Temple and Sacrifices - Pre-Christian? Zionist? Millennial? - be read so as to understand the subject matter of this Discussion Paper. If you wish a copy of the eBook version of the book, please email for a copy - see address details on front page].
|
