Sheshbazzar

[QUOTE] Doesn't need to, believers throughout the ages have always interpreted the texts of The Scriptures in ways that were "different", and found to be unacceptable to unbelievers.
By the gift of interpretation the texts reveal to believers many things that unbelievers cannot even perceive, much less receive, nor believe.
I express less than the thousandth part of those hidden things on this board, you so lacking in faith, cannot proceed beyond limited information written within the Books, and that misinterpreted to suit your vain theories;
Can you at all declare unto me with absolute conviction the number of fingerbreadths within a measuring reed? Search the Scriptures unbeliever, that you may be ever confounded, for they will never be opened to you;
But I will stretch my measuring line upon your high ramparts, and your lofty thoughts, and all that you have imagined and constructed will be brought down, and the fruits of your labors shall return into the dust, and believers shall tread upon them, and in the end it shall be as though you and your ideas had never been.

Do not the members of this forum accuse the NT writers of abusing OT writings to support the alleged fulfilling of NT prophecies?
Were not these the "believers" whose witness, and whose alleged abuse of Scripture has filled the whole world with so much information about what would have otherwise been lost to history?
Were their detractors at all able to withstand the going forth of their message?
They who held the word of hope prevailed, and their detractors now rot in the earth, their names being forgotten.
We hold great confidence that YHWH will ultimately fully vindicate the faith of the faithful.

spin

(Which ages?)

Cop out. The text says something. It is not reducible to simply interpretation. A text aims to communicate through language. Doing so, assumes a particular era of writing and a particular common understand at the time of writing. Whatever you have in mind that happens throughout whatever ages you refer to is irrelevant to the writer's rapport with his readers and listeners. Our job is to come to grips with the texts, not your believers. They have their opinions, but they have to show that it is based on the text, otherwise it has little philological value for understanding the text. It is merely eisegesis.

You might call it a gift, I'd call it something, but the main thing is that it is irrelevant to the actual text.

A rather cowardly approach don't, you think? Unable to deal with the text you hide behind dogmatism.

Assuming eisegesis. You don't need the text at all, do you?

This sadly cuts both ways and you are unable to justify one against the other, so you are nowhere.

Why change the subject? If you can't deal with the topic, admit it.

The credulous will find whatever they want.

This is pathetic, Shesh. If you are so unable to argue anything, why are you here? Why do you drop you churlishness on our doorstep? Is it just our misfortune that we don't require you to be coherent to post here?

You'd make a good muslim.

And I hold great confidence that the worms will not differentiate between us.


spin

Sheshbazzar

No, actually we don't. Salvation, true wisdom, and understanding come from Yahweh, the Father of lights, not from a book.
Abraham believed Yahweh, not a Book, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.
Thankfully, He is also The Saviour of the illiterate, the blind, the deaf, and the mute, the simple minded, mentally handicapped, and all children innocent of rebelling against Him.
Of course such can find no favor nor mercy with high-minded and self- important scholars.
So do I spin, so do I, but then Yahweh will.

spin

So you are wasting your time with the book. It's of no use to you. You have your special relation with your god.

(I suppose the notion of epistemology, ie how you know what you know, is not important to you.)

Even Satan believed in Yahweh, we are told. Not good enough though, was it? ("Ooops, let's try another cliche' -- I mean, another reference to that book which I don't need...")

Yes, my schizoid friend believed in all sorts of things that he couldn't demonstrate. They used to lock people like that up, but I guess if you couch it in religious terms they could make you a saint... oh, wrong flavor. Anyway the over-publically religious Christopher Smart got institutionalised even while professing his delusions in the trappings of christianity.

When you find a high-minded and self-important scholar do tell them what you think.

nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added

my Uncle Sol's farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who'd given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scruptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol

and started a worm farm)

-- E. E. Cummings


When the worms have done their job and shat the digested flesh, you really have to be imaginative to see anything beyond that.


Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat...


spin

Sheshbazzar

Put your own twist upon it, I did not say nor even imply that studying the Scriptures was a waste of time, or of no use, only expressed that the grace of Yahweh is sufficient to all of them whom for various reasons and conditions that are beyond their own control, have no access to, nor ability to read the contents of any book.
As many as are able ought to be reading The Books to grow in knowledge, to strengthen themselves, and to defend those weaker, who have not that ability, nor knowledge of Scripture wherewith to defend themselves.

How came I to "know what I know"?
The grace of YAH did not come unto me by any book that I had ever read, but Yahweh hearing my prayers day and night, sent forth unto me a "man of Yahweh", brother John who spoke unto me in the flesh, and who did witness unto me concerning those things touching the Faith, and perceiving him to be an angel of Yahweh, I believed upon the word that he spoke, and was immersed into the Name of YAH-YAHoshua The Messiah, -then- I took up The Books (many books not only the Bible) to prove whether those things he had spoken were true.
And brother John had received the Word of Yahweh from the lips of sister Margarete, and sister Margarete from the lips of brother Clarance.....as Brother Paul wrote only to them whom he had first visited, and himself -spoken- the Word to.
"believed in Yahweh" -you- have been told, yet persisted in rebellion, no, that was not good enough., and would not suffice you today, being in like rebellion, and holding an unrepentant heart.
No, you don't need His Book, for it will avail you of nothing at all except His condemnation in the Judgment, for rebellion of not believing on Him, for rejecting His counsel, and His Word, and the testimony of His witnesses;
Your books and your theories are therefore appointed to perish with you,
in The Day that He shall Deliver and shall save alive all of them who trusted upon Him, although they had not even read so much as a word from any books.
He shall raise you up from the castings of worms, and from the dust, and your eyes shall yet see these receiving their rewards, while you and your fellow adversaries are consigned to punishment with him whom you do serve.

spin

I agree that it isn't a waste of time, otherwise I wouldn't enjoy it. What I do think though is that you have a hypocritical approach to the literature.

You inject whatever meaning you want into it and don't care what it actually says. You justify this by believing that whatever it is you think must be right about it because you are a believer in god. Of course you forget that every christian and his dog is liable to think whatever silly thoughts that pass their brains must be correct and those thoughts are often in conflict with everyone else's, ie it's you and no-one else responsible for the construing of the text. Your ascription of your thoughts to someone else, ie god, is convenient -- you are not responsible, god is --, but that ascription is something you can neither justify nor demonstrate to yourself, yet it allows you to ascribe your errors to your god. You can live with that and you won't see beyond.

The sorts of knowledge about the lengths of cubits is really useful there, Shesh. You've avoided reading the text and its delights while using it as a means of self-stimulation.

How did you learn to speak? How did you learn to swim? How did you learn to avoid difficult questions? How did you learn to drive a car?

I believe that.

Just think of little Shesh there saying his prayers and god listening to them and at the same time little Reub saying his prayers and god listening to them and little Bertha and god listening and little Virginia. God's listening to these millions of grovellings per night and per day -- well there are people all around the world sleeping around the clock and god's gotta listen to each an every one of those little whines. Thank heavens for the Pacific ocean, where there are many few of these droning thoughts meandering of towards god. Thank you god for my new dishwasher. Thank you god for helping me through another day. Please god help me because I'm incompetent. Help me god for I am weak and... and amongst all these sweat smelling loads of codswallop is little Shesh, who isn't drowned out by all the millions of other little voices because god is listening to him as well as all the others. That's pretty good multitasking, and let's not think of all the other planets with life on them spread out across the universe. You can stretch your brain enough to make it work.

You won't contemplate the absurdity of this because you believe god is able to concentrate on all these vain strivings while keeping everything functioning and dealing with naughtiness of powers.

Epistemology asks how you know, so how do you know who sent forth this "man of Yahweh"? Did you go through any inevstigative analysis of the person's physical trajectory or were you just prone to believe whatever it was that turned you on?

How did you perceive it exactly??

So if any dude comes to your door and speaks cool enough, you'll believe upon that word s/he spoke? JW? Mormon? Neocon?

Are you sure it wasn't a bloodbath?

Here we have the eisegesis at the heart of your folly. Self-justification by reading into a book. You could have used a telephone directory with such a will, couldn't you?

Quite a pedigree of connections there. Clarence cons Marguerite... not cons but gets her to believe... but that's what a con-person does, isn't it?... but this person wasn't a con-person... it wasn't Clarence's desire to con Marguerite... he just told her what she needed to here... and so Clarence cons John... but I said there was no intention of deception... god was speaking through them... though god could have spoken to you directly... but god speaks through other people... and you are supposed to ask how do you know that it wasn't just the other people speaking?... because I know it was god speaking... and you are trapped.

As I said, satan believes in god, according to your own theology.

Didn't your mother ever tell you not to believe everything you are told? It i good advice. Epistemology should help you: how do you know the stuff you are peddling? Answer: you've no way of testing it. And we are back to thwe schizophrenic who knows things for which they can't provide means of arriving at the knowledge that are objective. Are you schizophrenic?

Hmmm, rebellion? great self-justification. If people don't believe the stuff you believe they are rebelling. It can't be your error, naaa.

Cliches are comforting, I guess.

Sad, but books are useful in themselves. You are not capable of appreciating "his" book. You abuse it by not reading it. You spend your days in self-justification, reading what you need into the book in order to feel like the world can be dealt with.

Oh, that gives you satisfaction. Glee! Enjoy it, Shesh.

Do you condemn the fanaticism of the human bomb? You know... people who believe as earnestly as you do. Are you right or are they? Oh, you say that you're right, but so do they. You say they are fooling themseves.

When those castings of worms have been used by plants for fertilizer absorbed into the plant then eaten by people who use the plants and that food gets incorporated into their systems, or into the systems of animals who eat the plants and someone eats the animal, you really have to have some way-out ideas of god raising anything from those castings of worms. It might be nice if one could see a little thought behind your ramblings, but it all seems to be knee-jerks, wouldn't you agree?

Oh, I bet that gives you satisfaction. You'd be able to think, "who's laughing now?" That evil spin is getting his come-uppance! :notworthy:


spin

Sheshbazzar

spin spinning.

spin

You can't even show yourself that you are not in the sty of your desires.

judge

Spin, can you recommend a good book which deals with this stuff?

thanks

spin

Loomis has already mentioned one of the most useful on the subject easily available in print:

Mark Smith, "The Early History of God (or via: amazon.co.uk)", Eerdmans/Brill.

Smith has another related book:

Mark Smith, "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (or via: amazon.co.uk)", Oxford.

Both books are interesting and useful, if the subject stimulates you. But they aren't the be-all and end-all on the subject, which hasn't really been dealt with anywhere near enough.


spin