FathomFFI

Okay, then he needs to make that point perfectly clear so that no one needs to think about it. He does go on with that argument, but I was left waiting for his argument with the word "has," because he never dismissed it. He never argued that side of the polemic in which he gave any reason for any of us to dismiss it.

Therefore, why accept his argument? It's only half done because he has not shown reason why the word "has" should not be in the translation.

He has to make a crystal clear point, and it's not clear at all. He should have said something to the effect of:

"The word 'has' is not present in the Greek text, therefore we have grounds to proceed that the rendering should indeed be 'God sent' as opposed to 'God has sent.'"

This would then dismiss the 'God has sent" interpretation, and done with evidence. This is what I'm talking about with this critique. Make the argument strong and clear. Get rid of the ambiguity.

Yet, he still must contend with the fact that both "God sent" and God has sent" still deal with the past tense and the most likely comprehension is that they mean the same thing.

His argument of a subtle difference between them is very weak, and really pointless. Why he even bothered with this is a mystery. It serves him nothing good to include weak pointless arguments into his work; all it does is fuel the opponents with reason for doubt.

Just think about it; how does that argument further his main objective? How is it relative?

EarlDoherty

How in Darwin’s name can you say what I’m doing or not doing with the “actual Greek text” when you don’t even read Greek???

And—as usual—you have everything confused about what I’m saying. I am not saying that the word “has” or its equivalent (as part of the Greek perfect tense) is in the Greek text. It is NOT there and so I am criticizing certain translations that render an aorist (that means “past” for you) as a perfect tense because they want to convey something about the relationship between the “sent” word in those two verses (which happens to be the identical Greek word). Whether both are “still referring to the past” is beside the point. The perfect tense, in suggesting a continuing action, can imply a degree of separateness in time, and that is what I was criticizing in such translations because the Greek does not contain that. You not only made your criticism of that quote from my article on an erroneous understanding of what I said, you were incapable of offering any proper comment on it because you can’t read the Greek text itself.

What the hell are you talking about? Did you go beyond that one paragraph in my article? Of course I talk about what Paul said, and what he said in Greek. I pointed out that element about some translations in order to make a certain point about what the Greek actually says. Does your comprehension not even extend that far?

And you find fault with my “demeaning” of you???

Toto suggests you are “difficult” to engage with. That’s wrong. You are impossible to engage with, because you don’t understand what you read, and your formulation of counter-arguments follows your own rules of logic that no one can understand.

I admit I was wrong to refer to your efforts here as a “traffic accident.” That was unjustified.

I should have said “a train wreck.”

Earl Doherty

EarlDoherty

:banghead:

"The word 'has' is not present in the Greek text, therefore we have grounds to proceed that the rendering should indeed be 'God sent' as opposed to 'God has sent.'"

Which is precisely what I have argued. Thank-you for pointing that out and confirming that, in your opinion, I was correct in doing so.

Now do you get my point, "the distillers"?

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

I completely agree that his writing is not always very clear. I have personally been misled on numerous occasions as to his actual intended meaning.

In this case, based on many exchanges on this topic, I feel confident that Earl rejects the has at least partly because the words for sent in verses 4 and 6, with the objects son and spirit respectively, are identical. Both are in the aorist. So he perceives a translation bias insofar as one of these identical verbs gets translated as sent while the other gets translated as has sent.

It is possible that the translators do this because the son was sent but is no longer here (having ascended, been exalted, glorified, what have you) while the spirit was sent and is still here (in the hearts of believers, having never left). If this is the translation bias (in favor of an actual first advent of Jesus) that Earl perceives, so be it. It is also possible that anything to do with the spirit as it relates to the everyday life of the believer tends to get translated with has; lots of aorists in Romans 6-8, for example, get translated this way in some of the versions. (Sometimes the English perfect is the best way to translate an aorist; I always used to resist this when I was in my Greek classes, but my professors insisted we not be inflexible on the matter.)

One of my issues with his argument at this point, however, is the supposed contemporaneity of these two sendings. He writes:

The question is, are the two thoughts, the two “sent” actions, more or less contemporary? Might they essentially be complementary parts of the same process?

The phrase more or less contemporary seems fudgy to me. The actions cannot, contextually, be actually contemporary, of course. The first sending (of the son) precedes the adoption as sons, while the second sending (of the spirit) comes after this adoption; cause and effect. This is consistent with the work of the son being once for all (Romans 6.10); the receiving of the spirit does not seem like a once for all event; it sounds like it happens every time someone becomes a believer, as in the case of the Galatians (3.2). This difference of perspective may also be a reason the translators offer sent in one case and has sent in another.

This is probably just another of those cases of unclear writing I referred to, but it is there, and it is hard to get past it to see what Earl is really trying to say.

Ben.

Lugubert

Of course there is no "has" in the Greek text. It's in Greek.

You just too obviously know nothing of languages or translating. If you had spent five or ten minutes on those matters, you might have known that what's conventionally labelled "present tense" in Koine (NT) Greek grammar sometimes corresponds to modern English (etc.) present tense ("he hears"), sometimes to imperfect ("he heard") or perfect ("he has heard"), sometimes to future ("he will hear"), and could well have shades of meaning like "it is/was heard".

That's just the Koine "present".

For most Koine verbs, there are more than a thousand different forms, to express among other things delicate shades of meaning like if an action was intended or just happened, or is or isn't yet completed.

Therefore you should not "proceed" until you have learned at least some Koine basics. Until then, I regard your interpretations of the Greek as magnificiently unreliable.

FathomFFI

That's quite easy; you never specified it. Do we see you mentioning anything of the Greek text? Are we to assume things here?

Make it crystal clear; the average reader base may not understand your position, and since your site is in the public domain, don't assume the reader will automatically accept what you are saying on the surface.

How does this argument correspond to anything? What is the point of this argument? How does this further your objective in any way?

All you are doing is arguing between translations; so what? How does this further your objective whatsoever? All you are doing is adding fuel to doubt what you are saying for no good reason whatsoever.

Get to the meat of the matter, and dismiss the pointlessness of some of your arguments.

This argument does absolutely nothing for your overall objective.

Explain how your argument regarding translations is actually relative to your over-all point of interpolation.

I do not see how, or why, you even bothered with this.

There's the counter argument. Show us how this argument of yours is relative.

FathomFFI

We know enough, my friend. The word "has" is not there in the Greek, but does the average reader know this? Earl is assuming the average reader has proficiency in the Greek, which is simply not the case.

Therefore, he needs to specify these things or else why should the common reader take his argument seriously?

FathomFFI

At least someone sees my point here.

He needs to "clean up" his position and get rid of the pointless arguments that do nothing but throw ambiguity all over the place.

I have yet to see how his argument regarding translations has anything to do with his position on interpolation. It's a waste of space, as it is totally non sequitur.

My argument on this was, and still is; what's the point? I have been asking Earl that since he first responded, and as of yet received no answer.

And this is why we can dismiss this argument; it has no point. Nobody is going to look at such a subtle difference in comprehension of "God sent" and God has sent" in an attempt to create an argument. All Earl has done is create a pointless argument for himself, for no one else is arguing here.

EarlDoherty

From what you say, Ben, it seems that my "unclear"ness was restricted to my use of the phrase "more or less contemporary". As you yourself went on to enlarge, I meant they are two parts of the same process, one following on the other. In other words, "more or less contemporary." So it seems it was not all that unclear.

Anyway, to understand what I'm trying to say, you need merely go "past it to see". The text that followsI think makes it very clear what I'm trying to say.

And this is hardly an extent of 'unclear' understanding that Fathom was guilty of.

Earl

FathomFFI

The "unclear understanding" you claim I supposedly have can be corrected by answering my question of whatever your point is with that argument.