Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Alf · 09-14-2006, 01:55 AM

I would like to take this thread back to the OP.

rhutchin quoted my post from another thread where I explained that one of the reasons why I have problems to trust the bible as telling about this One True God that rhutchin claims exists and which we all should worship - is the fact that the bible contains what appears to me to be contradictions.

This means that at least one of the gospels of Luke or Matthew must be wrong - and my bet is that they both are.

rhutchin tried to resolve this contradiction by claiming that the one of them is of the genealogies is of Joseph and the other is of Mary. That is one of the "standard" apologetics that we have heard here in IIDB and I have heard it before. It is no more convincing now than it was first itme I heard it and the more you dig into the greek text the less convincing it seems.

In conclusion I guess we can say that rhutchin has failed to give me confidence that the bible is a book describing how to worship or describing the One True God.

I guess I am a lost sheep. Not because I like to be lost but because rhutchin and others consistently fails to give me compelling arguments for their case.

In norway we have an idiom that says "Opp som en løve og ned som en skinfell". Translated it says something like "Up like a lion and down like a pelt". That describes the apologetics in cases like this. They generally come with very bold claims and roars like a lion - but when we dig into their case and ask them to substantiate their claims they drop down like a pelt.

I guess that basically sums it up pretty well.

Alf

rhutchin · 09-14-2006, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alf

I would like to take this thread back to the OP.

rhutchin quoted my post from another thread where I explained that one of the reasons why I have problems to trust the bible as telling about this One True God that rhutchin claims exists and which we all should worship - is the fact that the bible contains what appears to me to be contradictions.

This means that at least one of the gospels of Luke or Matthew must be wrong - and my bet is that they both are.

rhutchin tried to resolve this contradiction by claiming that the one of them is of the genealogies is of Joseph and the other is of Mary. That is one of the "standard" apologetics that we have heard here in IIDB and I have heard it before. It is no more convincing now than it was first itme I heard it and the more you dig into the greek text the less convincing it seems.

In conclusion I guess we can say that rhutchin has failed to give me confidence that the bible is a book describing how to worship or describing the One True God.

I guess I am a lost sheep. Not because I like to be lost but because rhutchin and others consistently fails to give me compelling arguments for their case.

In norway we have an idiom that says "Opp som en løve og ned som en skinfell". Translated it says something like "Up like a lion and down like a pelt". That describes the apologetics in cases like this. They generally come with very bold claims and roars like a lion - but when we dig into their case and ask them to substantiate their claims they drop down like a pelt.

I guess that basically sums it up pretty well.

Alf

The purpose of the thread is to sort out the Luke genealogy.

Whether it results in your trusting the Bible is up to you. I am sure you have more reasons than just this to keep you from trusting the Bible. Your decision, you do what you want.

rhutchin · 09-14-2006, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EthnAlln

rhutchin
I raised this issue with some people who know Greek (I do not even read Greek much less know Greek).

This is how I phrased the issue to them--

"We have at Luke 3:23--

KAI AUTOS HN IHSOUS ARXOMENOS WSEI ETWN TRIAKONTA WN hUIOS WS ENOMIZETO IWSHF TOU HLI...TOU QEOU.

It seems that Luke has to deal with the touchy issue of Jesus not being the biological son of Joseph so he writes, WS ENOMIZETO.

EthnAlln
In literal order: AND HE WAS JESUS BEGINNING TO BE OF YEARS THIRTY BEING SON AS WAS THOUGHT JOSEPH OF ELI....OF GOD.

The missing "tou" before Joseph is clearly a misprint.

Either that or it is exactly that which Luke meant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EthnAlln

Unless you want to say "Joseph being thought to be the son of Eli...." Actually I rather like that interpretation, and it does translate the Greek. Since Joseph has no definite article to put it in the genitive case, it could well be nominative. (There often is the definite article "ho" to indicate the nominative with proper names, but not always. But I've never known any writer to deliberately omit the genitive article "tou.") But I incline toward the misprint theory nevertheless. More farfetched: "being the son (which Joseph traditionally held) of Eli..."

My guess (based on nothing) is that the "hos enomizeto" is a later interpolation, and that the original text simply had "tou" in place of this phrase. When the belief in the divine origin of Jesus came to be asserted, the earthly genealogy became irrelevant.

That is interesting. I think your question amounts to asking whether IWSHF can be genitive without TOU and what this does to the phrase, WS ENOMIZETO IWSHF, if it cannot be. I’ll have to raise that with the Greek guys.

I am not aware that WS ENOMIZETO is a later interpolation. For now, I guess that is just your guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EthnAlln

And a good thing too. There is not just one Lukan genealogy. Different manuscripts have very different people in some of the places. If, as rhutchin claims, Luke heard this directly from Mary, the people he told it to must have had wax in their ears. Some of the manuscripts say "Aminadab" in verse 33 and others say "Adam", for example. Some say "Admin", others "Aram", and so on and so on.

So, if one claims that this genealogy is necessary, even though Jesus was of divine origin, to prove that he fulfilled the messianic criterion of being descended from David, it is pointless. If we are to believe that on the basis of dogma, fine; let those who wish say they believe it (if they really can). But inserting two different sets of ancestors on which the manuscripts don't agree, and in any case are merely a bunch of names of people mostly never heard of anywhere else anyway, is utterly pointless.

It seems certain that we have the genealogy of Heli which Luke could have researched easily from what I understand. The question is whether Luke intended to insert the genealogy of Joseph (for what reason?) or that of Jesus. It seems clear that Luke says WS ENOMIZETO IWSHF specifically to address the issue of Joseph not being the father of Jesus.

Luke has described the birth of Jesus prior to this and has made it clear that Joseph is not the father of Jesus. That requires Luke to say WS ENOMIZETO IWSHF. The issue then is whether Luke meant to give Joseph’s genealogy (for which there seems no purpose) or to give the genealogy of Jesus (for which He would have a purpose).

Quote:

Originally Posted by EthnAlln

rhutchin
So, must I read this verse as, "Jesus was allegedly the son of Joseph, of Heli,..., of God?"

or

Can I read the verse as, "Jesus was the son (allegedly of Joseph) of Heli,..., of God."

What does the grammatical construction of the verse require that I do?"

I am waiting on responses.

EthnAlln
The primary meaning of "nomizo" is "hold as custom or law", but over the course of many centuries, it was used to mean believe or suppose. The middle/passive voice, imperfect tense used here should properly be translated "was supposed." But note the other possible readings I mentioned above. Others with stronger Greek than mine may contradict me, so I stand prepared to retract at a minute's notice.

That does not seem to resolve the issue that I raised.

rhutchin · 09-14-2006, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremyp

rhutchin
Between the commutative and associative laws governing the use of AND in logic (I think), we can read Luke 3 as--

And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph, [AND Joseph] was the son of Heli, [AND Heli] was the son of Matthat, ..., [AND Adam] was the son of God.

--with the end result that Heli was the son of Adam and therefore of God by virtue of the chain through Adam.

jeremyp
Well strictly speaking, "is the son of" is mathematically a relationship, so we don't want to be talking about commutative and associative but things like transitive, reflexive and symmetric.

a relationship R is transitive if a R b and b R c implies a R c
is reflexive if a R a
and is symmetric if a R b implies b R a

Clearly the relationship "is a son of" is not any of the above, but the relationship "is descended from" is transitive. That and the fact that a is the son of b implies a is descended from b proves that, taking the bible literally, Heli is descended from Adam. Also, whichever grandfather of Jesus Heli was, Jesus is descended from Adam.

If Luke intends to tell us that Jesus is descended from Adam (through David), then the genealogy cannot be that of Joseph since Joseph is not the father of Jesus. If the genealogy is that of Jesus through Heli, then Joseph must be excluded which Luke seems intent on doing by inserting the phrase, WS ENOMIZETO IWSHF.

Dean Anderson · 09-14-2006, 09:55 AM

Hey - no fair!

You responded to everyone else, but not me.

Care to respond to Post #46..?

jeremyp · 09-15-2006, 02:07 AM

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