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Old 10-01-2012, 11:49 AM   #13
aiki-jujutsuka
 
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Re: What enlightened beings were known as GREAT martial artists

Quote:
Chris Parkerson wrote: View Post

Perhaps Joshua, David or Sampson of Hebrew fame? nimrod?
I am unfamiliar with many of the others in your list so cannot comment, but these three I am very familiar with and would like to express my view. I would not call these three men 'enlightened' beings in the pan-Asian understanding of the term. All three men were formidable warriors in their own right, but the concept of 'enlightenment' is foreign to the Hebraic faith. David received God's anointing and the Spirit of God came upon David (1 Samuel 16:13). In ancient Israel the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit of the New Testament) only imbued certain individuals - namely judges, kings and prophets - for their specific purposes or offices. However, these men were also deeply flawed. David famously committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband Uriah killed to cover up the adultery. Samson was a Nazirite, which meant he had to uphold strict moral codes of piety and yet he defiled himself by eating out of a carcus of a dead lion, slept with prostitutes and foolishly was manipulated by Delilah a Philistine woman into shaving his head, prohibited as a Nazirite.

David was a prolific psalmist and wrote many songs and poems found in the book of Psalms. These psalms prove David was a deeply spiritual man but his source of insight was God's revelation: the revelation of Creation, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, God's Law (Torah) and God's mercy in acceptance of repentence.

Joshua is an interesting case - he is a foreshadow of Jesus, known in Christian theology as typology. Joshua pre-figures Jesus as Israel's true leader and messiah. Joshua and Jesus in Hebrew have the same root meaning 'God saves' and contains the Hebrew characters for YHWH, the name of God. Jesus did not come in His first incarnation as a warrior-king, though many people misunderstand Jesus as a pacifist. Jesus' purpose was to save humanity from their sin (as His name indicates) by dying on the cross.
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