Awmte

Dear IBIH, why is it that any of spin's substantive posts are completely invisible to you, but somehow you manage to answer a trivial throw-away snark?

The disinterested observer might justifiably infer that you are unable to respond to serious scholarship when it contradicts you... :deadhorse:

IBelieveInHymn

Yes, you're misinterpreting the bible. You are not studying what these words mean.

I'm sure quite alot know of this wordplay.

It's pretty basic. Just type in "did Jesus say hate your parents?" on Google, and you will see Jews explaining these verses quite thoroughly.

God's word is not difficult to understand. It just takes a little effort to study to the word play, that's all.
When you were in college, did you throw away all of your textbooks because you didn't understand them?

I found a website that might be useful for you.

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

Talmudim, 'students' of Jewish rabbis were taught to place their affections for their teachers higher than that for their fathers, for:
"his teacher has priority, for his father brought him into this world, but his teacher, who has taught him wisdom, brings him into the world to come".

"By three names is this mount known: The mountain of God, Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai. . . . Why The mountain of God? (Exodus 18:5). Because it was there that God manifested His Godhead. And Sinai? Because [it was on that mount] that God showed that He hates the angels and loves mankind." (Exodus Rabbah 51.8, Soncino edition)

There is actually a Hebrew wordplay here, for Sinai sounds like the Hebrew for hate, although it begins with a different Hebrew letter and may mean 'thorny'. Similarly, Malachi speaks of God's preference for Jacob over Esau:

"... yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau..." (Malachi 1:2-3)


Matthew, in fact, gives the game away and here a synopsis of the gospels and a little Hebrew understanding could have answered our question from the first, for he translates as "love less" rather than "hate":

"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." (Matthew 10:37)

Whilst Jesus does predict division as a result of following him he does not proscribe hatred for elsewhere he upholds the precept, "honour your father and your mother" (Matthew 15:4-6, 19:17-19; Mark 7:10-13).

http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/lovehate.htm

gdeering

Since you are accepting what the Jews have to say about Jesus how about answering my post addressing Jesus' failure to live up to the inerrant Biblical prophesy (or shall we say template) for the true Messiah, for convenience sake I'll repeat the ten lines:

1. Be the seed (a direct descendant) of King David, through King Solomon (e.g., 2 Sam 7:12-16) I.e. be totally human
2. Be a spiritual and military/political leader (e.g., Is 2:3, 11:2; Dan 7:14)
3. Be married and have children during his term (e.g., Ezek 46:16-17)
4. Arrival of Elijah the Prophet (e.g., Mal 3:23-24[4:5-6][2])
5. Building the Third Temple in Jerusalem (e.g., Ezek 37:26-28)
6. In-gathering of Jewish exiles to Israel (e.g., Is 11:12)
7. Reunification of Judah and Israel into one people (e.g., Ezek 37:22)
8. World peace (e.g., Is 2:4)
9. Universal knowledge of G-d (e.g., Is 11:9)
10. Resurrection of the dead (e.g., Is 26:19)

Thank you,


Gregg

Sheshbazzar

The questions is, IBIH,WHERE? and in exactly WHAT? BIBLE verse(s) do you find 'God' saying "on Mt. Sinai that he HATES his angels, but LOVES man" ?

Provide us with the specific OT Bible verse(s) that you are drawing this statement from.
(Imaginative 'explanations', found only within obscure commentaries are not 'Scripture', are not readily accessible to most of mankind, and are not at all acceptable substitutes for the provision of the actual Scriptural verses being commented upon.)

graymouser

IBIH:

For all the ridiculous lengths that you've gone to in order to try and say "hate means 'love less than'," you have still not dealt at all with Lk. 14:26 in context. The phony Hebrew explanation that some apologists have cooked up does not matter if you read the verse in context. It's clearly not a simple commandment - "oh, you should hate your family" - but part of a larger command to give up everything that you have in this world, family, possessions, status, and so on, and become a follower of Christ even unto the point of death. This is about joining an apocalyptic cult. If you read the NT, it's pretty clear that early Christianity had a lot of things we would associate with a modern day cult - voluntary poverty, rejection of family, deification of the leader-figure, predictions of an imminent end of the world, association mainly with other believers - and here Jesus is depicted as laying down the law. You either can give everything up, and follow him, or go on home.

Of course, once the cult really took off, and became a state religion, the sort of hard-core notion of an all or nothing belief had to be dropped. But early Christianity was definitely not what modern Christians make it out to be.

Dark Virtue

Lovely, now you're twisting MY words around.

You know that I was referring to how many Christians actually spend the time to research and study Hebrew.

So you haven't actually studied Hebrew then? All of your understanding rests on Google searches? I didn't realize that Google was such a divine tool.

Study the world play? Why leave anything open to interpretation? Why leave one jot or one tittle open to human interpretation? Why is it possible for two Christians, let alone non-Christians, to read the same verses, the same Bible and come up with wildly different interpretations?

Why didn't God just make it SIMPLE. Simple as in no Google searches required.

What did Christians do before Google? Were all their interpretations wrong?

Would you mind explaining:
1.) What is your definition of "wordplay"
2.) What is wordplay doing on the Bible?

spamandham

Yes, that's right. Only atheists are capable of misunderstanding the Bible. That explains why there are thousands of Christian sects based on different understandings of the Bible.

You don't even acknowledge that the NT was written in Greek. Even the drones assembled by theological Bible colleges know that much.

IBelieveInHymn

I'm simply correcting you.


I don't know that answer, but I'm sure alot of Christians see "hate", and probably think nothing of it.

Yes, the same way atheists rely on sites such as; Skepticsannotatedbible to find their errors. I wonder how many atheists realized these supposed conflictions before Google?

Because wisdom comes to those who study and learn. Anyone can read Luke 14 and see the word "hate", and suppose it means literal hatred.

It is simple. Heck, i understand what this verse translates into. What's your excuse?

Bible scholars have been studying the bible since the 3rd century. I don't think they used Google or Yahoo!

Meaning some people just don't understand the wide variety of meanings in different words.

Back when these words were being spoken. It wasn't considered wordplay. Everyone knew what Jesus meant when he said, "follow me instead of your parents."

The Jewish midrash on Exodus describes God as hating the angels, and not just the fallen ones. It does not mean he dislikes Michael and Gabriel! It means that he chooses to give man the Torah, rather than the angels.

Jesus pretty much said the same thing. DO NOT HATE YOUR PARENTS, but worship me [Your God] over them.

The bible says "God hates his angels."

Since the word "hate" is being used as a strong-word.

Do you believe God actually detests his angels?

Sai

Atheists dont think there is a god, or any angels.
How one imaginary thing might feel about other imaginary things is for the theists to worry about.

You always speak as if the existence of this "god" is a fait accompli and we all know it but dont necessarily want to admit it. Aint so.

How are you so confident you can translate so well when you got the loch ness thing so completely wrong? it was written in English, no translation necessary.

Everyone else understood it. You didnt.

Can you explain that?

Failte

Quite a few of us. You keep talking about "atheists' as if you assume they are not knowledgeable about the bible, that they don't "understand" things, and that they are simply uninformed.

I know more atheists who have read the bible, cover to cover (often more than once), than I have met christians who have done so. Most of them only know what they are told in church or in the specifically chosen passages in "bible study". Obviously some christians are well-acquainted with their bible, but they seem to be in the minority. In addition, many atheists have spent time investigating other religions, looking for some kernel of truth there - we have often read the Koran, the Vedas, the Torah, and even Dianetics. Many, many atheists here were believers for many years.

Many of us identified the falsehoods and contradictions in the bible long before the internet and long before Google. Our research methods are not as simple as typing into Google, I'm afraid. To continue to insinuate that we are speaking from a position of ignorance when it is clear that we are not, is insulting.

Our opinions are as valid as yours, and -- from what I've seen here -- often based on better scholarship and understanding of the issues. We just don't believe; that's the difference.