Ted Hoffman

Forget his Hebrewlessness: he was such a maniacal prophecy slut that he did not even care whether the prophecy made sense or not! Imagine that.

spin, surely an ass is not a colt (or Hebrew does not distinguish them?). Do we have any other examples where this alleged shortage of conjunctions in Hebrew (- or it it a Hebrew poetic device - which is it?) resulted in such parallels?

squiz

The NASB uses "even". From what you say, it seems to not be a bad translation:

Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a (F)colt, the foal of a donkey.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...9;&version=49;

spin

The Hebrew term meant 'young male ass", which is just rendered in English as "colt".

(Search your Hebrew bible for "but" and probably every time it will be the same word used for "and", ie W-.)

It was a deliberate act which resulted in the parallels found throughout the poetic sections of the Hebrew bible, especially Psalms. A few more examples:

Ps 22:18,

They part my garments among them, and for my vesture do they cast lots.

or 22:23

‘Ye that fear the LORD, praise Him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and stand in awe of Him, all ye the seed of Israel.

You'll find the technique again and again in the Hebrew bible (though not always with "and").


spin

Ben C Smith

The Hebrew poetic device (called parallelismus membrorum) dovetails with the shortage of Hebrew conjunctions. Spin is not making this stuff up; the phenomenon is well known and has been much studied.

The male offspring of a horse is of course called a colt, but the male offspring of a donkey is also called a colt.

Ben.

ETA: The same basic construction appears in Genesis 26.28: Let there now be an oath between us, even [Hebrew waw, or and] between you and us....

Malachi151

Yep, exactly, which is basically what I thought I already said several times...

So we are in agreement. The author of Matthew, while basing his narrative elements on Hebrew scriptures, also believed that what he was writing was historically true of Jesus.

That's what I've been saying all along...

dog-on

Fixed.

Solo

Imagining..... well, you see, Ted, when you are a maniacal prophecy slut what you see makes sense absolutely. If your brain tells you that certain events are in fulfilment of OT prophetic visions when you are hot, you can't argue with your brain. There is an aura of profundity that attaches to these thoughts - which makes them self-validating. The author of Matthew, like Mark, like Luke, like Paul, was manic. He experienced the highs with the prophetic psi-functions and the "cooling" of them (i.e. leading into periods when his brain functioned normally). This created the mystery of the Spirit: it was coming and it was disappearing, and the disappearing was done in a horrific way, through depressive psychosis which carried with it the the features of 'self-annihilation' (Hello apocalypse !). The Passion is a metaphor for the Spirit disappearing from a prophetic manic. The arrest of Jesus is an allegory of the experienced struggle of the brain (the arresting party of men) to restore its homeostasis from the invading manic excitement (the dying glory of Jesus).

When Jesus sends for the Markan donkey, the maniacal slut in Matt's brain makes Matt see two animals in Zech 9:9. It is probable though that when Matt's brain cooled he saw the error himself (or someone pointed it out to him) but he would leave it in as witness to what the Spirit had done to Matt.
When Jesus, the allegory for the dying Spirit, get's slapped around by men after his arrest (26:67-68), Matt feels so confident he understands what Mark meant that he removes the blindfold to drive the original point home. The prophetic powers are an illusion (which however, as Paul tells his fellow afflicted saints (1 Th 5:20) should not be despised). Paul knows the Spirit will be quenched but will rise again in permanence in the end ! In effect, what Paul promised was the glory of the manic peak without the downside in the afterlife.

In case you are not experienced in Manic Depression like Jimi Hendrix, you might want to read Russell Shorto's introduction into the Science of the Soul : Saints and Madmen (or via: amazon.co.uk). Though I am skeptical of the "new psychiatry" he advocates, (see here a view that I agree with ) the cases Shorto presents are illuminating in what goes on inside the head of psychotics. I think we need to understand the headset of the NT visionaries to make any sense of what those texts are relating to. As spin will tell you, the biology of human brain has not changed in the last two millenia and therefore what we know of cognitive dysfunction, chemical changes in, and micro-electric patterning of, the organ, mood swings, sleep and feeding dysregulation, anxiety attacks, ideas of reference and compulsive behaviours are very useful tools for analysis of the texts.

Jiri

aa5874

Where in the NT and the early christian writings can I find information about the sleeping and feeding dysregulation of the authors and the chemical changes or micro-electric patterning of their organs?

I think a healthy person can write fiction.

The gospels are just proaganda to promote a god/man called Jesus fabricated by using out of context passages from the OT.