Devilnaut

Doctor, I would perhaps suggest that you allow others the chance to worry about treating their own sewage because I really don't think they need your help.

If Amos is a waste of time I suggest you try to say goodbye.


"Nevertheless, when a reader insists on demanding others share in his misreadings"


From my perspective, there is only one person here making any demands about how others should see things...



"The son of man has no place to lie his head"

What do the scholars make of this line? I can tell you what it means; it means that the son of man is empowered with the realization that he hasn't anything to prove and that his belief in the truth of what he says is not conditional, and it is not dependant on "popular belief" or any sort of authority. What he says is truth because it is a perfect reflection of the reality of his experience (his expression and his impression are the same).

Devilnaut

I will add more.

The context surrounding a great work of art (meaning what's outside of it) is and should be meaningless because if the artwork is honest, it will contain everything you need to know to understand the full story.

For it to be the word of God means that it is perfectly honest and this means that it is a retelling of one man's experience (in his own mind), no more and no less.

The only way to see what it says is for you to have experienced the same. If it doesn't make any sense to you then you probably just need to forget about it and do your own thing for awhile... adding more information will make it LESS coherent and not more (because it is already whole).

Remember also that your consciousness cannot contain all of the parts of the story at once. It must be embedded into your subconscious memory for understanding to take place (just like if I explain to you what I see as the plot of some book, you still won't really understand it without reading the whole thing yourself and this doesn't mean skipping ahead to the ending). Further, if you don't trust what you are reading (if you really feel like they are trying to "sell" you something, probably how you feel about Amos) hardly anything will make it into your subconscious memory and you will probably never understand. Not a big deal though, go read a book you like.

Doctor X

Your analysis indicates otherwise.

I refer to the answer I gave previously.

Fortunately, the Noble Readership has a far more objective perspective. The demands of the individual to read texts eroneously rather demonstrates that.

For an exegesis of that particular pericope, I would suggest another thread since this is/was devoted to the contradictory genealogies of Mt and Lk.

Nevertheless:

is not supported by the text. It remains a personal confession of faith which cannot, without evidence, be forced upon the author of the pericope. One could, of course, provide that evidence in another thread or, even better, submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.

Some should quit when they are behind [Stop that!--Ed.] Okay . . . okay. . . .

Ipse dixit--merely a personal opinion. Fortunately, as viewers of art people do not need to limit themselves to such a declaration that would remove reference and allusion--if not symbolism!

Indeed, by this definition, the texts of the NT do not constitute "great art."

This would, of course, include his proclamation in Ezekiel that he required child sacrifice in order to punish his people . . . rather singular conception of "honest;" though, more to topic, having someone's birth attached to two different and exclusive historical events seems rather distinct from "honest."

Fortunately untrue since one does not need to drown to compare the Flood Myth with its Sumerian precursors. . . .

on the contrary, it makes sense if one understands the contexts. That what sense it is conflicts with what one may want it to be remains one's error entirely.

What follows is a non sequitur supposition. What it does not address is that fact that in order to discuss a text one must . . . wait for it . . . discuss the text. Simply meandering on about what one believes is useless. Certainly, declaring said belief as supported by a text when the text does not is dishonest.

--J.D.

Amos

Perhaps, but on the other hand, you may be concerned that your punchbowl gets flushed and that you have to get a new idea of what sewer tastes like. That is to say, you have studied the scriptures throughout your whole life and have become an impoverished believer because reason tells you that the bible is wrong.

I am also not interested in proving to you that I have stated more than once that I write for my own pleasure and never ask my reader to believe me at will. My perspective may be different
but it certainly is not exclusive to me.

Amos

Please be advised that not all people think that there was real water in the Flood Myth and that it must be experienced in real life and not be compared with the Sumerian floods because they were parallel with each other.

The Flood story is about tithing wherein we must spend a certain amount of time contemplating our present day in relation to the future. This is how we become ark builders and if indeed we have stocked our life-houseboat with all of the animals, even the wolves, we will float and reach the other side when the storm of life comes rolling in. If, on the other hand, we insist that the unstructured space of our conscious mind is not a deluge we will not know how to float and we will drown even in the solid rock that we built our castle on. Worse yet, it will become our tomb because we had hewn it with our own hands and therefore will never get a chance to walk away from it (be reminded here that Joseph came for the body of Jesus and laid it in the tomb he had carved as if out of rock with his own hands).

So I suppose you have figured out by now that to be a good ark builder you must first be a good tomb hewer and that the castle you built must become your tomb when you get to the other side of life (or it would not be the other side).

Doctor X

Most unfortunate:

Opens with unwitty blatherings on a punch bowl. . . .

Since the individual performs in such an attrocious fashion in rendering his delusions he would kindly cease attempting to make statements and render opinions for others.

Certainly for no one else's pleasure. Self-pleasure has apparently rendered the individual blind. Neverthless, it is not a question of asking the Noble Readership to believe. Posters must provide evidence. The individual beliefs he may waft his beliefs without question by some sort of fait. That the actual texts contradict what he claims they mean--as demonstrated in numerous posts above--does not shake his delusions.

That other inmates exist in the madhouse does not make their opinions any more valid.

"Some people think we never landed on the moon."

The extant texts of the Flood myths do, Heavens to Betsy, involve water.

That some have recognized that no universal flood ever happened--certainly not as described in the Genesis Flood myths--does not lend their credibility to this latest meandering:

Ipse dixit and quite wrong given the Sumerian myths predate the Genesis myths. As for "experienced in real life" if the individual wishes to experience a flood first-hand, he is welcome to that delusion.

Not supported by the texts. Again, if the individual would bother to READ THE TEXTS he may improve his comprehension of them. The concepts of "tithing" and "contemplation" are contained in neither the Genesis or extant Babylonian/Sumerian myths.

Sorry. . . .

Further meanderings that have nothing to do with the texts. . . .

Again, I must ask the individual to confine his ravings to himself.

Next. . . .

--J.D.

Amos

That would only be true because you did not understand them either.

They predated the Genesis story but were parallel in their purpose. I once read that there were as many as eight of them and you still insist that they involved real water?

Doctor X

At least the delusions have become more concise. . . .

Poisoning the Well with a dash of ipse dixit though, unfortunately, wrong as demonstrated above.

It seems, much to the discomfort of the individual, I have rather understood them well.

Reading the Genesis stories and reading the other myths reveal they had rather different purposes.

Funny what actually reading the texts can demonstrate. It certainly helps to avoid such mistakes:

The second does not follow from the first, however, I believe no one expects the individual to apply logic at this late state. I remain an optimist. Nevertheless, in the context of the individual myths that describe floods with water . . . they use water.

I will recogize that with the shift to emphasis on flood mythology, the impossibility of reconciling the genealogies has been conceded.

Progress, I guess. . . .

--J.D.

Amos

Yes they use water as a metaphor to describe a non-rational event just as we use "falling" to describe how we go to sleep or become lost in love. If falling asleep and falling in love were rational events we could find a better word for it and that is the same reason why water was used in the flood.

Doctor X

For the sake of accuracy, "falling asleep" is a "rational" event. Apparently the recommendation to read some basic texts on physiology before wandering off into assumptions about it went unheeded.

As for the rest, I refer to the answer given previously.

--J.D.