Buster Daily

Everyone knows it's in Missouri. (Sorry for the off-topic humor.)

Notsri

I see now. I was looking at Johnson's translation of the Latin Life of Adam and Eve.

You make a good point; I spoke inaccurately before. The Latin Life is at best ambiguous whether Satan is the serpent, though he probably is not since the related Greek version, sometimes called the Apocalypse of Moses, is quite clear that Satan merely spoke through the serpent. That being said, though, the Greek Apocalypse, and probably the Latin Life as well, is still relevant to praxeus' text from the Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (PRE), insofar as both associate at least the serpent's words, if not the serpent itself, with a demonic entity.

PRE 13 suggests:

"All the deeds which [the serpent] did, and all the words which it spoke, it did not speak except by the intention of Sammael."

Apocalypse 16.5 says:

"The devil said to [the serpent], 'Do not fear; only become my vessel, and I will speak a word through your mouth by which you will be able to deceive him."

(Incidentally, I would certainly agree with Diogenes: the Life doesn't necessarily tell us anything about Genesis' original intent.)

So far as I can tell, it is still the consensus today that the Latin Life and Greek Apocalypse—though not later versions, like the Slavonic— represent ancient Jewish tradition, stretching even back to the 1st century (though, as the website you linked to earlier indicates, there are dissenters).

Regards,
Notsri

CircleOfSpirals

First post:


"First of all, I thought the difference between man and angels was that man had free will, and the angels did not. The purpose of God creating man, was to have a being with the ability to choose him, or reject him. So that choosing to worship God was an expression of true love.

This leads to a few problems in logic.

a) if angels didn't have free will, how did Lucifer and the other angels get cast out?

b) remember now, that Lucifer and the other angels are God's creations, since God created all things. They are not other gods, or lesser gods if you will. they were created by God. These beings stood before the throne of God and looked at him directly. They saw him in all his awesome holiness and pwer. They saw who God was. And they rejected him! Did you hear that? They saw God face to face and decided they could do better!"

It's fairly pointless to go about finding contradictions in the bible. the bible IS contradiction, that's the genius of it, the secret to it's survival. you could waste an entire lifetime doing that. cool website, though.

PS how can i do that blue-box quote thing? it doesn't seem to be working for me

Amaleq13

Check your PM's for the answer. You can find your Private Messages in the upper right corner under Welcome, CircleOfSpirals.

mdarus

Greetings, CircleOfSpirals. I am a lurking theist. Permit me to respond to your comments.
You have recognized the falacy of stating, "angels do not (did not) have free will". The Bible nowhere states that they do not have a free will. It may be someone's theological theory. I expect the majority Christian opinion is that angels have a free will also.
This should not be surprising. This is a major theme of the Bible. Those that see miracles (whose faith is based on sight) are often the most likely to later turn away when the miracles stop.