Jinto

Oh yeah, of course I wouldn't expect somebody else's dream to make sense. But you've just conceded my point: this isn't a case of a misnomer, this is a case of the text actually not making sense. Doh.

As for the Aramic part: I don't know the first thing about Aramic, so others are invited to tell me if he's making sense here or not.

Okay, the context is I had a huge fucking trip the other day and in it there was this beast which knocked about a third of the stars down to Earth and stomped on them. Only problem is, I apparently told a few others about it, and now it's become part of a religion, in spite of the fact that it makes no bloody sense and I was trippin' at the time. Wierd what people will believe.

Evangelion

For the Aramaic, see here. and here.

As for this...

The dream incorporates symbolic language, and is explained with crystal clarity in the verses which follow.

Thus:

• Daniel 4:19-26.
  Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonished for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The king spoke, and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation thereof, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies.
  The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth;
  Whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation:
  It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.
  And whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from heaven, and saying, Hew the tree down, and destroy it; yet leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him;
  This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the most High, which is come upon my lord the king:
  That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
  And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.

Therefore:

• The tree = Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom.
  
• Hewing down the tree... till seven times pass over him = Nebuchadnezzar would be humbled for a certain oeriod of time.
  
• The stump remaining = Nebuchadnezzar would not lose his kingdom entirely.

All of which is explained by Daniel himself, in the verses which follow the king's account of his dream. So yes, it does indeed make sense.

It's another vision; this time, of the apostle John.

As he tells us in his preface to the Apocalypse:

• Revelation 1:1.
  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

Revelation is one huge prophetic vision, in which symbolic language is used to represent the events of the future.

NZAmoeba

[Derailment] I hold MYSELF accountable for my transgretions, as does society. Why do xtians have to rely on having something else do the hard work for them? [/Derailment]

Felstorm

I see how this works. You claim that your man-made religion isn't a man-made religon because everyone elses religion is man-made religion and therefore is invalid. nevermind that Jews, Christers and Islamics all worship the same "God" just under different names.

:notworthy I bow to your educated viewpoint on Islam.

And to be "holy" by YHVH's standards you have to throw temper tantrums and drown 99.99999996% of the worlds population to be considered a "true" deity. Nothing beats genocide for proof of existence.

Haha ha! stupid humans you want me to show you my true power? I love you! *Deluge* I love you so very much! *Deluge* And you too little girl! *Rain thunder Deluge* Muahahah! I haven't felt this good since I created HELL!!! Burn little girl!!! I drowned you, now you can BURN!!! Fry!!! Crispify!!! Trogdor! Burninate them!

*drown gurgle blub roast rotisserie barbeque bacon sizzle*

Okay if it is so much better to be with god, and you are sure that you are going to make it, then why don't you hurry up and meet him?

Felstorm

And then it was all written down hundreds of years after the fact.

Self fulfilling prophecy.

Evangelion

The initial objection was "this doesn't make sense", not "this prophecy isn't true."

My pupose was not to vindicate the prophecy, but to prove that the passage does indeed make sense. Which it does.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

Vinnie

Actually, since you assume the Bible and Jesus cannot be factually mistaken, you must interpret that passage as such. This is a silly game. The pious pastor wants to harmonize everything and the village atheist wants to point out as many contradictions as possible.

But as serious historians will tell you, either Jesus was mistaken on the timetable (see Sanders, Fredriksen and others) or this belief about a second coming did not originate with Jesus but started in the very early church (see John Dominic Crossan and I beleive John Meier). None of them use the hermeneutic of harmonization like you or other conservatives. Paul's urgent eschatology, the shaken converts in Thessalonians and all the gospel back-peddling ending with the redaction of GJohn and 2 Peter in ca 130 ad on this issue all lean in against your interpretation.

You can disagree with what I just wrote all you want but it won't make it wrong--and honestly doesn't change diddly.

I could pose three problems with this, the first being the most petty and weakest.

1. I'm not the literalist so maybe we can know the minute and the year if not the day and the hour Sure I may be reading it with wooden literalism but so are you since you naively dismiss number 2:

2. Why is "no man knows the day nor the hour" inconsistent with an imminent return expected within the lives of Jesus close followers? He could very well have thought it was soon but didn't know exactly when. He may have thought it would occur during his own lifetime for all you or I know. There is nothing inconsistent here.

3. Demonstrating that Jesus actually said the latter may prove difficult, indeed. You cannot just assume Jesus said everything the Synoptists attribute to him and use it to create your own harmonized Jesus action figure (tm).


Ah, the good old cruel omnipotent deity who punishes his children for not believing problematic facts to be historically true reaches the limelight once again

Don't your realize that this nonsense makes people not believe in God and for good reason?

Assuming a second coming, maybe he will be mad at you for misrepresenting him to the lsot whom he died for?

Most intelligent Christians do not accept the nonsense that 'it is appointed for men to die once and then face judment'. Salvation is not limited to this life. Eschatological Evangelism and Inclusivism are two more tenable 'wider-hope theories' that are held. If you want more info on them just ask.

Either Jesus or "the Bible" is wrong on this. Choose your poison.

A inerrancy advocate has no business making accusations like this. Your time would be better spent picking and choosing which harmonizations you subscribe to in light of the large amount of obvious contradictions in the Christian canon.

Lacking total understanding, you make up lame harmonizations where Jesus and 'the Bible' are off the hook for a mistaken timetable....

I think that can be true to an extent. I block out God in the same regard. I feel shame but this is not the same as the "atheists don't believe in the facts like me so they are evil" line that you are espousing here. Atheism is largely a direct reaction against supernatural theism (ST). As a panenetheist, I share this rejection of ST. To be quite honest, ST is ridiculous and very easy to dismiss.

It very strange how you blame non-Christians for failing to accept the problematic facts that you strangely, believe in. Just because you believe it to be true does not mean everyone else has to accept nonsense as factually true.

Whats moreis that your belief would have us sentenced to hell for rejecting certain facts. This is a perfect example of the reasoning behind the first stop here section on my website:

I hope you don't call this witnessing as it will do no good here. Finding a nice choir to preach to might suit you a little better.

Vinnie