Clouseau

As you well know! You cannot deal with my post, all you can do is assault the poster. 'Bye.

spin

It seems you do have difficulties understanding what is being said to you. My complaint with you here has been one of epistemology. You make ontological statements which apparently have no epistemology to back them up. If you feel assaulted by that, then you might consider doing something about it, rather than running away or plain ignoring the issue. When you have no way of knowing what you claim to know, ie you have no epistemology to back up your ontology, what you claim to know has no value: you are talking through your hat. What you need is a means of knowing how you know what you claim to know and being able to enunciate it rationally, then you can't be accused of talking through your hat. On rare occasions I've been known to be wrong, so please feel free to supply some epistemology for your claimed knowledge of authorial intention.

Clouseau

Really? Give an example. See if you can write a post to me that does not contain a personal pronoun. Let's see if you can actually deal with my reply in a civilised way, instead of all this nasty comment.

spin

I have been trying to get clarity from your comments about your perceived authorial intention. I have made that clear several times. When you said that this or that was "intended as allegory", you made an ontological commitment which I questioned looking for how you knew it. So far, you have not been forthcoming. From my position it would seem that you are unable to supply the epistemology.

What would you like instead of personal pronouns?

I dealt with your post in a civilised way in post #16 of this thread. Your response did not deal with the issue. Instead it dictated what didn't matter -- and that didn't deal with your claims of biblical content being "intended as allegory".

Clouseau

Now see about #17.

Amedeo

?

===> Salamander found that the idea of a man living in a fish for three days is laughable, and conluded that the Job story of mythology.

I wanted him to expound on his theory of what is laughable [not true] and is therefore a myth.
========

Is intended as allegory.

===> You seem to say that, as in the case of Job, the story about the talking serpent is not true, but it is not a myth either.

In other words, you do not believe that the Bible narrators spoke literally; rather, as Philo began to say, they spoke in allegories (or fables, like Aesop's fables). But then you should be taking the first two chapters of the Bible as allegorical accounts, not literal accounts: the gods who create are characters in fables. (There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that some story were meant literally, and that other stories were meant allegorically.)

This word should be translated 'proud, arrogant men'. Imv, of course.

===> The Biblical nephilim were not men; they were gods who consorted with the daughters of humans. (Similar entities and similar events are found in non-Biblical scriptures.) Of course, I may think that the nephilim are mythic creatures of the human imagination, but in the Bible they are asserted as real; in fact, it is because of their deeds and of human wickedness, that God decided to destroy mankind (but then picked Noah to perpetuate the race).

The nephilim are not allegorical figures at all.

Also intended as allegory.

===> So, anything which is unrealistic or erroneous is the Bible is preserved by calling it allegorical. What is the story of Noah and the ark an allegory of? Of God preserving the animal and the human species? Was the wickedness of men, the wrath of God, and the righteouness of Noah literally true, but the flood, the ark, the collection of the animal species, and the founding of many nations figurative ways of speaking about something else. What on earth is the message of you alleged allegory??? Was a certain battle literally true, whereas God's stopping of the sun (in order for the battle to be completed) a manner of speaking for something else. (The Bible gives no clue that some messages are meant literally and that other are meant allegorically. )

Plurals in Hebrew were quite often used as intensifiers, in this case to emphasise power and majesty, and therefore to exclude happenstance from the creation of man.

===> That's another false rabbinical interpretation. Genesis:1 is very clear about: Let US make man in OUR image, that is, a MALE and a FEMALE. It is the creating Gods (or El speaking for both himself and his divine spouse) that decide to create some things like themselves, male and female. (If they had spoken of the wanted creatures in terms of intelligence or creative power, or immortality, the image or likeness in question would not require human of different gender. A single God could have said, Let us create man or humans, male and female, in our image: immortal, intelligent, etc.) When a god like Yahweh produced man de facto in his own image, he produced simply a male. (The female was a later afterthought and was extracted from a male.)
The Elohim and Yah are simply NOT one and the same deity; and the Elohim are plural. I did not infer their plurality from the plural name, "Elohim."
The right interpretation has to be made on the basis of the content of the text, not of what one likes to believe that the words say.

All such interpretations that you offer are made from the standpoint of a rabbinical theology that tries to accomodate the Bible to itself, and thus it falsifies the Bible.

spin

You cut before you should have.


spin

Amaleq13

He has dealt with your post but you seem to be missing his point entirely.

You asserted what you considered to be the intent of the author but have failed to explain how you reached that conclusion from the text.

How do you know the author didn't have in mind an actual talking snake?

How do you know the author didn't have in mind an actual magic tree in the garden God created?

How do you know that the author was aware he was writing an allegorical fable instead of relating what he believed actually occurred in the distant past?

sometimesisquint

I guess god himself is allegorical.

mojuang

Clouseau should have seen the point much earlier but he seems to refuse with obstinate vehemence what he possibly seems unable to answer.Spin is very consistent and sticks to the point in question.We're still waiting for your assertion of allegory Clouseau!!Tempers are not answers!:devil1: