TedM

I recall that some parts I had to read a number of times to get his point. It's disjointed at times, for sure. There perhaps is a learning curve--and adaptation phase to understanding his approach with various things highlighted, his indexing approach, etc.. but now when I read it, it seems pretty easy to follow. Everyone has a style of their own, and sometimes it takes time to adjust to it. I've been surprised here a few times when someone wrote that they can't make heads or tails out of something I wrote, that I thought was very clear..Can you give a passage of his in which you were lost?

spin

How exactly does it change what I've said? I've explained why the notion of plurals of numbers below ten doesn't get used in Hebrew: the plural form of four is forty, of five is fifty, etc; so in Hebrew the plural form of seven is seventy. There is no notion of "sevens". I've also shown that $B(YM meaning "weeks" is used in Lev 12:5. (In fact all the uses of the other form, $B(WT, relate specifically to the festival of weeks.)

Just analyze my original logic. It should be clear enough.

(ETA: using Gleason Archer as a source is asking for trouble.)


spin

aa5874

Based on what I have read so far on the website, Bernard Muller presented a pausible Jesus, not a historical Jesus.

The main problem I have with those who constantly try to re-construct Jesus is that they use the same incredible material, the NT and early church father writings, to fabricate a plausible entity and then call their fabrication "history".

What a person imagines Jesus to have been, however plausible, may not be even close to reality.

The authors of the NT and the early church fathers have already presented their implausible god/man Jesus, and this is the true Jesus, the only possible Jesus and ,according to them, there is no other Jesus.

Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Eusebius, the early christian writers, all deny that Jesus had an earthly father and, yet still claimed Mary was a virgin after the conception of Jesus by the Spirit, but to many, these claims are most likely false.

Now, if Bernard Muller, or anyone for that matter, deduced that the conception of Jesus is completely erroneous as described in the NT, why does he maintain that Joseph is the real father of Jesus and Mary is his mother, when he has not a single thread of evidence to support such a position?

It makes no sense to me to reject the implausible god/man Jesus of the NT and the early christian writers and then proceed to fabricate your own "history" of Jesus using the very same incredible text.

Plausibilty is not always history, and Bernard Muller may not understand that.

DCHindley

Whoo-wee! This brings back memories!

On 10/9/1999 BM got banned from Crosstalk2 partly on account of some posts to me and Mahlon Smith in which he went off the deep end.

BM got some early positive feedback from Mahlon Smith regarding his web page on the HJ and the book of Revelations in 1997 (he refers to it in his web page as his best review), and Mark Goodacre recommended his website on his NT-Gateway not too long before he was booted from Crosstalk2. This recognition seemed to have gone to his head, really, and he started making very bold interpretations and talking down to the moderators there when they attempted to get him to qualify his opinions.

Between my own observations of his messages and through private e-mails with JG at that time, I came to understand that most if not all the Crosstalk2 moderators felt that BM had a naive understanding of what the rules of evidence in exegetical method entailed. He used translations of sources, which he was mixing and matching to suit his taste, and refused to look at the meaning of things in context when they were pointed out to him. He had such a high opinion of his own exegetical ability that he refused to read the secondary literature in order to cross-check his own exegesis against the positions of experts. When the moderators continued to moderate his postings long after he thought he should be able to post unmoderated, he got very defensive and accused the moderators of censoring him, made an off-list post to a dozen or so listmembers directly to complain about it, and so on ...

So, is his presentation coherent? That's not the way coherent people do things.

DCH

John Kesler

Daniel (via the angel Gabriel) has reinterpreted Jeremiah 25:11-12 so that the time of punishment can be extended into the second century BCE and the persecution under Antiochus IV. Daniel's justification comes from Leviticus 26:27-28, which speaks of a sevenfold punishment (for Daniel, 70 years of Jeremiah X 7=490 years). That Leviticus 26 is the source is bolstered by Daniel 9:13: "Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us...," an apparent reference to Leviticus 26:14ff. What is interesting is that the Chronicler, in 2 Chronicles 36:20-21, interprets Jeremiah's prophecy as a literal 70-year period. (See also Zechariah 1:12.)

TedM

I think he allows for the possibility that the "incredible text" includes some history, and then proceeds to find various corroberative evidences for that history. He does this in favor of the theories that don't depend on primary documents and yet fabricate a "history" anyway.

Corroberation IMO increases the likelihood of determining some actual history.

TedM

It's as clear as mud, spin. What you seem to be saying is that the Hebrew word that is repeated twice can mean either "weeks", "seventy"(that is 70), or "seventy"(meaning the plural of seven, or "sevens"). As such we have either:

"weeks, weeks"
"weeks, seventy"
"weeks sevens"
"seventy seventy"
"seventy weeks"
"seventy sevens"
"sevens weeks"
"sevens seventy"
"sevens sevens"

Sounds to me like the only possible ones out of those that make sense are "seventy weeks" and "seventy sevens". Bernard pointed out that Daniel's usage is unique when he wrote "Only in this chapter of Daniel does it appears in the masculine plural sabuim", thereby setting the stage for an "unusual" interpretation. Do you dispute this observation on his part?

Then, Beranrd shows why "seventy sevens" makes a lot more sense than "seventy weeks"--from an analysis of the time period required by the references to events during the period.

Finally, he shows how there are exactly seventy occurances of the number "7" from the date beginning with Cyrus' decree and ending at the time of the abomination during 167BC, and having nothing to do with the traditional interpretation of "seventy weeks" of years, or 490 years.

A very coherent and--for me--compelling arguement.

ted


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TedM

Thanks for your thoughts, though they seem more directed at Bernard personally and how he handled some issues of discussion on another thread. Beside that kind of stuff what is your recollection as to how his ideas were received in general? Maybe that isn't a fair question since it has been so long..

ted

spin

I'm sorry, TedM, I mustn't have made myself clear enough.

The Hebrew word order is as I initially gave it "weeks seventy", working from Daniel itself, by analogy from 9:25, which talks of S$B(YM $$YM W:$NYM, ie "weeks sixty and two". That is why I gave you that translation in the first place. There must have been a reason, TedM. Try to think about these things before going on with this list:

I tried to make it clear to you that you don't get the idea of "sevens" in ancient Hebrew because the plural form makes it "seventy".

There is no word that carries the English idea "sevens". The equivalent Hebrew word using a plural form of seven is as I said, "seventy". There is no escape, no catch, no worming a way out of it. "Sevens" is just plain wrong. What else can you expect when you cite from Archer?

At the same time (and for the third time), we do have another word $BW(, meaning "week" as seen in Gen 29:27. It's plural forms are $B(WT, which is used for a religious festival ("Shavuot"), and $B(YM, as seen in Lev 12:5. Hence we are dealing either with seventy seventy or seventy weeks and you must admit that seventy weeks in itself is straightforward and has an easily graspable meaning while seventy seventy does nothing useful in the context. You do admit that don't you, TedM? On a simple language level, do you agree with my choice, given the field of seventy seventy and seventy weeks, with the understanding that the notion of "sevens" didn't exist?

Yes, it's totally unfounded as I pointed out in my first post on the subject.

It might make sense to him, but I've pointed out the grammatical problem. The notion of "sevens" was not available to be expressed directly in ancient Hebrew. (But look at Gen 7:2f, where "by sevens" renders $B(H $B(H -- $B(H is the feminine form of "seven".)

I haven't read the web site you refer to. It will have no bearing on the significance of $B(YM in Dan 9:24-7. I haven't entered into the interpretation of the text. I have merely attempted to clarify what a few of the words mean in themselves.

If there is anything I haven't made clear enough yet, please ask me about it.


spin

TedM

I guess I have misuderstood what you meant by this. I interpret this as saying that IF you see "thirty" in Hebrew, it can mean either the number 30 or the plural of "three", which in English would be "threes". Same reasoning for "seventy": It would mean either the number 70 or the plural of "seven", which in English would be "sevens". Is this NOT what you are saying? If not, how did people count by sevens back then? Would it not make sense to have some way of expressing that, especially since a week had seven days in it? I would think that people would have counted by other numbers too, and had a way of expressing that concept.

Doesn't that mean that if we see the word "seventy" it could mean the plural of seven, or "sevens" in English? If so, I simply don't see from your comments how the correct rendering can exclude "seventy sevens" in favor of "seventy weeks".

ted