YHWHtruth

The only ad hominem attacks that have been launched come directly from you, as illustrated in your above words. As I said (I guess I will walk you through it again), you give absolutely no examples of any such "contradictions". All you are doing is begging the question and creating non-sensical reasons for continuing to excise DAY from the text, for theological reasons. But it will not work, and you should simply apologize and amend the percentages in your thesis. You might also consider issuing a public apology for your numerous misrepresentations of my work, and your personal attacks against both myself and the others._

I have nothing further to say about this, except that I agree whole-heartedly that the reader should have absolutely no trouble recognizing whose mind is in the clouds, and whose is based squarely on the_ linguistic, grammatical, historical, and theological evidence presented in Scripture.

But do we really expect Fel to come clean and say, "Yes, I am guilty of reading unbiblical theology into the Bible, and my thesis is a vehicle through which I hope to accomplish this aim"? Fel is doing the only thing he can do at this point, and that is obfuscate and deny like there is no tomorrow. The truth is, I understand Fel's "methodology" all too well, and that is precisely why his games do not work, here. Fel is reduced to his predictable rhetoric, "I has continually floundered," etc.

I have addressed each and every point of objection raised by you, and further exposed your mishandling of the text, misunderstanding of the issues involved, and misrepresentation of my views, as expressed in online discussions of this subject. If anyone believes that there is some point raised by Fel , or related to the issues at hand, to which I have not given sufficient attention, please email me and I will gladly offer further comment.At this point, I cannot see any reason why I should spend anymore time with Fel on any of the subjects discussed above. He has lied about my views, altered the text of the Bible to fit with his thesis/theology, and consistently substituted ad hominems for legitimate argumentation. He claims to be more interested in "light" than "heat," and yet he succeeds only in radiating the latter, not the former.Unless he offers an apology for at least two of the above problems (and there are others, such as his continued misunderstanding of my arguments [this is different from what I believe is a blatant lie concerning my position], which results in my having to repeat what I have said many times before), I will spend no more time with him. I appreciate the need to engage opposing views so that others can see what each side has to offer, but I think that our discussion has reached a point where it is no longer productive, unless Fel's disposition and claims change radically. I am content to leave things as they are, with full confidence that those reading this discussion will recognize the problems with Fel's views and thesis, as I have outlined them.

More heat vented in what I can now say is truly a cave of spiritual and intellectual darkness. My arguments are not as Fel has portrayed them, and in fact it is his arguments that are based on unbiblical theology. I have nothing further to add in response to such an impotent series of false claims and ad hominems, as given by Fel above. Sadly, though, he is not finished

YHWHtruth

Who sent me this e-mail?

>I can't see how one word-one concept can stand really, Max. Are "scarlet" >and "crimson" separate concepts or merely subcategories of the >superordinate concept of "red"? If we accept one word-one concept aren't >we just running down the denotation alley which surely de Saussure and just >about every linguist since has warned us against? Or are you just being
>coy with your word usage here?

I apprecieate your questions. As we both know, little is certain in
linguistics, because everywhere we meet exceptions to the rules we believe we have established. My fist posting was a reaction to the view that we can use an English word to describe a Greek concept which is not expressed by a Greek lexeme but which is an umbrella-concept for several Greek lexemes. When I ventured my one word-one concept claim and the examples with the original and the modern presupposition pools, I stressed that this was an *idealized* description which was used to drive home my point and give an outline of the situation.

Inside the original PP there are of course many differences of
understanding, and we cannot for instance take for granted that the first letter of John uses a particular word exactly as does Colossians. But this does not alter the main point, namely that there is a heaven-wide difference between the two resupposition pools. The "one word-one concept" view was also meant as a general expression of how "words" are stored in the mind, and was particularly applied to the situation of translation. I
hate all-propositions and do not claim this principle is universal, but it works very well as a fundamental principle

If a close friend of yours posed the question: "What is the meaning of the English word "bird"?", you would start to wonder. Because you both *know* the word, there is no question about its meaning. A child or a foreigner learning English could ask the question, and then you would explain its meaning, engaging in an act of translation inside your own language. I therefore exclusively combine "meaning" with translation, while words in
our own language induce a certain reaction inside our brain.
Quite a lot of data have accumulated because of psycholinguistic
experiments, indicating that the sounds or letters of such referential words as "bird" are stored in the mind as "prototyp" concepts. i.e. we have some notion of "birdiness", of something that is common to birds. So we have no problem in applying "bird" both to the robin, the ostrich and penguin, and even to Arkhaeopteryx. Because of the fuzzy borders or the somewhat fluid nature of the concepts and of our marvelous ability of
imagination, we can use the words signalling the concepts in new contexts, with an understanding on the part of those listening or reading even though they have not seen the word in this context before. The concepts are therefore not static but their edges may be extended, even to the point where they may divide into two parts just as a cell.

Examples of one word-two concepts are found in words in the Semitic languages where two different roots have fused after a loss of a laryngeal, and there may also be other examples. The principle one word-one concept works best with fully referential substantives, but I believe that even in the case of "scarlet" and "crimson" will our brain differentiate between two concepts because they are signalled by different sounds and different
letters. These concepts may be quite similar in important respects but there may also be differences (the frequency of their use, sociolects etc.) In any case is the principle very useful in bible translation when a study Bible is being made. The question is simply: "Is it possible to find one word in the target language which signas a concept which is similar to the one signalled by the source word?" If there are two words in the source
language which can equal "scarlet" and "crimson" why not use "scarlet" and "crimson" in english, and let the reader do the interpretation? (But, sut: colours have different ranges both in Hebrew and Greek compared to English!)


I do not think that the general principle that each word signals one concept is at odds with de Saussure«s "langue" and "parole". To the contrary, the signal effect of the word, and that it signals a concept in the minds of people being parts of the linguistic system, accord very well with his thoughts. In addition will the psycholingiustic view of words-concepts help us create a model for lexical semantics which combines the best both of the etymological model and the semantic domain model without being trapped in their fallacies.

Max

mike_decock

I think this is good advice for any theist.

I've read your lengthy arguments for the ambiguity of the word "day" and you argue that it cannot mean a literal day because it contradicts the theology of the Bible.

Felstrom does have a good case but the reason you refuse to consider it is because you assume that the theology of the Bible is consistent.

Consider the first half-dozen chapters of Genesis on their own merits and forget, for the moment, your theology:

Here is the verse in question: Did God lie about Adam dying the day he ate of the tree?

Genesis 2
17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Now, compare this to a few other verses in Genesis:

Genesis 3
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

God is walking through the garden looking for Adam.

Genesis 4
9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

God asks Cain where is brother is.

12 A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

God Tells Cain that he will be a fugitive and a vagabond, but a few verses later, he is married, with child and building a city.

Genesis 6
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

God regrets creating man, just 5 chapters after creating him.

Here we see God walking around, speaking directly to humans, making false predictions and regretting his actions. To make a case that "a day doesn't really mean 24 hours" is a matter of grinding down the square peg theology of Genesis to fit your round hole theology.

-Mike...

Felstorm

Okay Max. Now you switch gears and preposterously tell me I am proposing a thesis on unbiblical theology. Because... get this... a literal interpretation of the bible is not a form of biblical theology. After all, my arguement if taken in it's literal context would be devastating to the foundations of the Christian religion. How dare I imply that God could even possibly be considered to be a liar!

:boohoo:

I'm sorry but there are people in this world that think the bible is supposed to be read literally. You keep missing this. I'm addressing ONE way of interpreting it, and that is literally. I do know that there are different ways of supposedly making sense of this contradictory mess, despite showing you that God is ultimately responsible for his displeasure with humans, you still can't see the contradiction in him punishing mankind for something god himself ultimately caused into being. That is most naive of you.

I don't care what allegory you are reading into it to make it make sense. I'm not dealing with that allegory. I'm not addressing your C, D, and E, interpretations of biblical scripture. I'm adressing ONE. I'm ignoring your "plugin's" because those plugin's are based upon subjective opinons on definitions implied by an anonymous writer speaking an effectively dead dialect.

How about this for word examination and nitpicking? You use PAROUSIA in an email to describe to me how "accurate" your biblical translators are. How come Christianity STILL hasn't figured out that you worship a plural goddess? After all you are supposedly theological experts, if you discovered something that was devastating to your religion I'm sure you guys would correct it post haste, right? Or perhaps not.

Here let me pick apart the name of your supposedly all-male god. YHVH is a feminine, or androgyn duality, not all-male as commonly thought. And Elohim is a plural. YHVH Elohim, commonly translated as LORD GOD, is not it's literal translation. That is not what it means. It literally specifies, a female or androgyn, Yah Heh Weh Heh , and ELOHIM. (plural, lit. those who from the sky to earth came.) There are two parts to the word Yah Heh. Yah, feminine/dominant. Heh, masculine/dominant. And Weh Heh. Weh, feminine/submissive. Heh, masculine/submissive. It was originally worshipped as a male/female duality, with a strong emphasis on the female/warrior/lover aspect similar to Athena or Astarte/Ashteroth, just like Astarte and Isis before her, her symbols were the Sheperds Hook and the Sheep, which is logical because the Israelite semitic tribesmen were, shepherds after all. It is often popular to take the Tetragrammaton Duality Name and bastardise it with another semitic god name, AGLA, to form a Notariqon, Yahweh, Jehovah, YehWeh, and thus a pronunciation for the name which has no 'true' pronunciation. The All-Male aspect was added after men took over the preisthood in Israel and changed YHVH duality into a All-Male Monodeity for power reasons. The orginal temple of Solomon had female preistesses, the Duality Deities were openly worshipped and sacrificed to, and the temple was even visited by Bath Sheba, a preistess of another 'pagan' temple. Not to mention Solomons notorious dabbling in the "occult" which was part of that wisdom imparted to him by the YHVH Duality god that fateful night.

Anyway. Quite literally the name YHVH is describing a female/androgyn/duality god/esses "who from sky to earth came". How can I take you all seriously when you claim to know what these people meant about everything else, when there are SO many discrepencies at the base of the religion, that upon close examination it cannot even be determined if you worship one god or many? Please. You can't even pry the true definition and nature of your god-name out of ancient text, let alone dictate to me the definition of the literal defintion of "day" in ancient Hebrew.

When god says that Adam will die that DAY, if you are a literalist then it means THAT DAY. That 24 hour rotational period. Not 903 years from that conjunction.

Lets stick other definitions of that word into the verse and see how much it makes sense.

So at Genesis 2:17 where it says;

"But as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad you may not eat of it, for in the 'age' you eat from it you will surely die."

Okay. It kinda makes sense. But, how long is an age? Does the bible specify how long this unit of time is? Is it consistent with actuality? And if that is what is really meant, why didn't the translators just put the word 'age' to avoid confusion? Which brings into question the rationality of the all-perfect all-powerful god letting humans misrepresent his message. After all he IS all-powerful and could change it effortlessly. I'm sorry her message. Anyway, if Adam had eternal life to begin with, why didn't god just say, "In the day that you eat from the tree, you will become mortal, subject to death?" if that is what he really meant? Why the hell do you have to do any interpretation at ALL? Seriously. If god is all-perfect and all-knowing and all-powerful, don'tcha think that she could have gotten some better writers so everyone could understand her if it was REALLY that important? I mean after all she IS responsible for confusing our languages in the first place. Now ins't that clever? Damn humanity to an eternal torment, and then put her all-important message into one itty bitty tribe of goat herders, with an already ambigous language, so everyone can be equally confused. I see, it all makes perfect sense now.

Anyway. The word "day" now becomes "age" (conveniently for the apologist) now becomes an unspecified length of time, so when Adam finally does die, after being threatend with what is very likely instant death. So they can say. "well an age is however long it took for Adam to die! So meh!" Or, "Well it wasn't literal death, but um.. spiritual death..yeah thats it... You see it's like when you unplug a TV set it doesn't go out right away and...blah blah blah" Copout. That is what we call a copout. By all means of reasoning I'm "disconnected' from that magical umbilical cord, and I seem to be doing fine. In fact I feel pretty spry. Lively enough to keep coming back here and dealing with this disorgansied illogical mess. In fact I have a pretty long lived family. My great-grandma lived to 98, and both my grandparents lived to 80 something, and at the rate medicine is going I'll prolly live to 100. So the whole "spiritual entropy" idea isn't really working.

Saying that, "Well if you had REALLY read my arguement, you would have understood why you are wrong. The "force" of the scripture and my interpretation of it should have changed your mind.' This is just a veiled ad hominem to imply that I MUST be close minded to other interpretations of the verse and that I only look at it in the literal sense. For all practical intents and purposes I AM dealing with a purely literal interpretation in this instance only. It does not mean that I am unaware of other interpretations, or as you put it, "plugins" of interpretations of biblical text. However you assume that your interpretation is the only logical interpretation of the verse because it is the one that supports your theological argument that "God is not a liar.". "Because if I did interpret it literally it might just implicate God as being a liar and that might implicate him as not 'all-perfect'. And then it might be a possiblity that God's omniscience was short-sighted because he couldn't see Adams choice coming. And if this is true then that might bring into question it's omnipotence being impotent as he seems disinterested in changing something that he caused to begin with, effortlessly, and by not doing this it renders it's omnibenevolence null and void."

[strawman]Nice job there Tinman, not only are your views rigid and need oil, but your arguments might just suggest that you just might be hollow as well. Haha, touche! Aren't I clever! Perhaps you should be playing the Cowardly Lion instead?[/strawman]

YHWHtruth

You wrote: Genesis 2
17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Here is the verse in question: Did God lie about Adam dying the day he ate of the tree?

Actually I said this if you had read:

I think part of the problem is that our English translations have
not served us well in translating the meanings of certain texts.
The ancients had no problem with the Hebrew word for DAY, they saw
no contradiction, as they understood the word in a different way
that is not really carried over too well in most translations that
only opt for the word-for-word literal rendering. A better
translation might be one that provides a meaning for meaning/thought
for thought rendering from the Hebrew is Ferrar Fenton's The Holy
Bible in Modern English, which translates the day/yowm at Genesis 1
and 2:4 as "period" and "age."

Consider other ways this word was used:
At Numbers 7:84 it refers to 12 days.
At Lev. 13:14 it is "at any time." Fenton
1 Kings 2:37 "ever" TEV
Ps 18:18 "in my day" Fenton "when" TEV
Isaiah 11:16 it refers to the entire Exodus.
In Jer. 11:4, 7 it refers to the Exodus plus the institution of the
Mosaic Law.
There are of course many more examples (see Brown-Driver-Briggs
Lexicon and Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon).

Now, take the above and apply it to Gen. 2:17:
(NET Bible) "but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die."
(New Jerusalem Bible) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are
doomed to die.'

This is then another sense we could take it, that Adam fell from
immortality to mortality in one day, and simultaneously lived to
less than one day in God's eyes. No one in the Bible ever lived to
more than 1000 years, and as time went on, the life expectancy
dropped. When Adam ate the fruit, it was like unplugging a fan. It
does not stop immediately, but does eventually.

Now who is of guilty of a priori interpretations?

You wrote: Genesis 3
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

The Hitpael participle of El*h* (h*l*E, “to walk; to go”) here has an iterative sense, “moving” or “going about.” While a translation of “walking about” is possible, it assumes a theophany, the presence of the Lord God in a human form. This is more than the text asserts.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about21 in the orchard at the breezy time22 (NET)

You wrote:
Genesis 4
9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

God knew him to be guilty; yet he asks him WHY? This is the first time God called on a sinful human to repent. After Cain showed an unrepentant attitude and committed his felony, Jehovah sentenced him to banishment, tempering this with a decree forbidding other humans to kill him.-Genesis 4:8-15.

You wrote:
Genesis 6
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

First of all, let it be noted that older translations (AV, AS, Dy) state that God "repented" over his doing this or that. But the word "repent" carries the connotation of feeling sorry because of having committed a sin or a wrong. Jehovah God, being perfect in justice, simply cannot commit a sin or wrong requiring him to repent. That is why modern translations speak of him as feeling "sorry" (Mo, RS), or being "grieved" (Ro) or having regrets.-AT, NW.

At Genesis 6:6 the Hebrew word translated "felt regrets" is na·hham´, and, like many other words, it has several meanings. Forms of it have been rendered in the New World Translation as "felt regrets" (Gen. 6:6), "relieve myself" (Isa. 1:24) and "be comforted."-Jer. 31:15.

Regarding this Hebrew word The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 1, p. 225, states: "Generally translated 'repent' (in the passive form) 'comfort' (in the intensive form). Actually the word means 'to take a breath of relief.' . . . The word therefore has to do with 'change of attitude,' 'change of mind,' any other association being accidental. . . . When the word is translated 'repent,' as frequently of God, it means 'change of mind or intention.'"

When Jehovah God said, "I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground, . . . because I do regret that I have made them," what did he mean? (Gen. 6:7) That he regretted that he had created man in the first place, and that it was all a terrible mistake? By no means! Had he felt that way he would have wiped out all humankind. His regret applied only to the wicked pre-Flood generation, for immediately following we read, "But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah."-Gen. 6:8.

Clearly the thought is that Jehovah God had a change of mental attitude: He turned from the attitude of Maker or Creator of men to that of a destroyer of them because of his strong displeasure. To illustrate: A father may give his son an auto, but if the son misuses it, gets into trouble because of speeding, and so forth, the father may feel regrets and take the auto away from his son. He has a change of mind, but he had not necessarily made a mistake. The son is the one that made the mistakes and did things that were wrong. The son could have shown appreciation and so brought joy to his father by using the auto wisely.

And so with humankind. Had Adam and Eve taken a wise course, Jehovah's heart would have rejoiced. But since they took a wicked course, God had no pleasure in them; he felt regrets and was obliged to take away their lives. The same was also true of the wicked generation living at the time of the Flood. God changed his attitude toward them. In fact, it was absolutely imperative that he do so because of the developments. He was sorry that it involved a great destruction of life, and yet he was obliged to act to uphold his standards.

This feeling of regret on Jehovah God's part works both ways, as the Bible shows. If his creatures fail in his purpose for them, he feels regrets and they incur his wrath. But if Jehovah purposes punishment to some of his creatures because of their wrongful course, and they truly feel sorry, repent for their sins and have not reached the point of no return, then Jehovah will have a change of mental attitude toward them and show them mercy; he will feel regrets. So instead of bringing affliction or further affliction upon them he will bring them relief.

Jehovah God did this with the Israelites during the time of their judges: "Jehovah would feel regret over their groaning because of their oppressors." (Judg. 2:18) So also in the case of the people of Nineveh. Jehovah had decreed their destruction because of their great wickedness. But when they sincerely repented upon Jonah's preaching to them, Jehovah "felt regret," changed his mind or mental attitude toward them "over the calamity that he had spoken of causing to them; and he did not cause it."-Jonah 3:8-10.

In view of the foregoing, how are we to understand the expressions found in the Scriptures to the effect that Jehovah God does not feel regrets?-Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 110:4.

These are to be understood as applying to certain specific cases under consideration. For example, Balaam was made to prophesy that Jehovah would not change his mind or feel regret regarding the prosperity he had purposed for the nation of Israel, in spite of all the efforts of King Balak to get Balaam to curse Israel. (Num. 23:19) When King Saul proved unfaithful, God's prophet told him that Jehovah "will not feel regrets" or change His mind about rejecting him. (1 Sam. 15:29) And Jehovah God swore so that he would not feel regret or change regarding his purpose to have his Son become a priest to time indefinite according to the manner of Melchizedek.-Ps. 110:4.

You conjecture, again, does not apply.

Max

YHWHtruth

<How come Christianity STILL hasn't figured out that you worship a plural goddess? >

Who says that I do?

At Genesis 1:1 the title "God" is translated from 'Elo·him´, which is plural in Hebrew. Trinitarians construe this to be an indication of the Trinity. They also explain Deuteronomy 6:4 to imply the unity of members of the Trinity when it says, "The LORD our God [from 'Elo·him´] is one LORD."

The plural form of the noun here in Hebrew is the plural of majesty or excellence. (See NAB, St. Joseph Edition, Bible Dictionary, p. 330; also, New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. V, p. 287.) It conveys no thought of plurality of persons within a godhead. In similar fashion, at Judges 16:23 when reference is made to the false god Dagon, a form of the title 'elo·him´ is used; the accompanying verb is singular, showing that reference is to just the one god. At Genesis 42:30, Joseph is spoken of as the "lord" ('adho·neh´, the plural of excellence) of Egypt.

The Greek language does not have a 'plural of majesty or excellence.' So, at Genesis 1:1 the translators of LXX used ho The·os´ (God, singular) as the equivalent of 'Elo·him´. At Mark 12:29, where a reply of Jesus is reproduced in which he quoted Deuteronomy 6:4, the Greek singular ho The·os´ is similarly used.

At Deuteronomy 6:4, the Hebrew text contains the Tetragrammaton twice, and so should more properly read: "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." (NW) The nation of Israel, to whom that was stated, did not believe in the Trinity. The Babylonians and the Egyptians worshiped triads of gods, but it was made clear to Israel that Jehovah is different.

Stop Making things up Fel

Spaz

How would an omnipotent, omniscient, etc. god feel regret (or any other emotion for that matter)?

YHWHtruth

Spaz read the above comment

The problem with the words of the trinity doctrine is that the words are meant to explain concepts of things that transcend the borders of our material worlds; we have no empirically based understanding of things in the spirit realm, though we attempt to use language to explain spiritual things. In such a situation, where the referents are qualitatively completely different from any referents existing in the natural world, then, when we are using words in reference to spiritual referents, it is important to outset that we understand that we are making analogic use of words for the possibility of discourse respecting spiritual realities. Prestige, who criticizes the Arians extensively, says "the supreme scandal of Arian theology was its misuse of biological language to express the act of creation.
The Arians asked, for instance, how a son could be as old as his father, and because this is biologically impossible, they concluded that the Son was created. What Prestige calls "a scandal" is due to his starting and ending with the ordinary meaning of the words in question. But we can safely say that certain Bible writers, in their anthropomorphic descriptions of God's features (for example, God's hair, nostrils, breath, etc.) deviate from any intent that their words should apply to God in a manner literally descriptive of God; thus, they write descriptions as analogies: they write about God in his wisdom as though he were an aged man having white hair; they write about God's fury as though he were a man breathing furviously, ect. Let me illustrate how we use words for making sense of spiritual things.
Have you ever tired to explain colors to a person born blind? In such a situation, what would you say? It would of course be extremely difficult. One solution could possible be to let him smell the odor of different flowers and say that just as there are differences in scent among different kinds of flowers, which only can be detected by the nose, there also may be different colors for different objects, which can be detected only by the eyes. To use words normally applicable in certain kind of context (for example, as description of the sense of smell_ for use in another biological context may be done for the purpose of analogy; however, this analogical way admittedly is not of much help to the blind person, but it or something like it is the best we can do.
It is similar with God, who is spirit (Joh 4:24), and with his Son and his angels, who are spirits as well. Heaven, or the spiritual world, is not visible to humans, and therefore we are "blind" as to its nature. To make the best of the situation and to give humans a vague impression of what God and his world are like, the Bible uses descriptions from our biological world, and they ascribe to God human-like attributes. Nothing of this is literal; God does not literally consist of gems and gold, and angels do not have winds. But Bible writers, in order to help us apprehend certain spiritual majesties, employed analogical references to things in the world of mankind as signals or symbols for greater realities.
I, therefore, will go in the opposite direction of Prestige and claim that it is the "biological" language that counts; and that the way Anthansius and other defenders of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son used the language, is similar to discussing the color and size of the wings of angles. They took as their point of departure spiritual concepts which the biblical words refer to, made up their mind respecting the meaning of these concepts, and discussed them as if they were part of a material world. But this is to start in the wrong end. Human reason and logic cannot be used to understand God's spiritual substance informing His existence; we are, however, dependent upon his revelation of himself, his Son and his Spirit. We therefore have no other choice but to start with the words in their normal or "biological" sense. They are the building blocks, and from these we may get an analogical concept in the references being made.

Max

Felstorm

I love this guy. He always manages to twist the perspective back to his "right" one. And then drags in irrelevent information, the Trinity. I'm not discussing the Trinity. So stop trying to change the subject.

Again we see that anyone that says anything different doesn't have it right, they apparently haven't read anything othewise they would think just like him. And then on top of this, he quotes the definition for the word Elohim concieved by, of all things, the Catholic Church and another person more than likely to have a religous bias.

Come on. You automatically rule out my definitions because they conflict with your religious model. You have STILL not addressed my more implicating pagan pluralities to the early Judaism. Every time you keep turning to the bible and pulling scripture out, to verify itself.

"Early Jews didn't believe in more than one god because my bible says they didn't." Is that the only source of information on ancient Semitic tribes?

http://cc.usu.edu/~fath6/bible.htm

http://cc.usu.edu/~fath6/contents-bible.htm


It's amazing how you turned, Elohim, plural noun, into a singular noun.

YHVH is a name. A name of an Eloha. Elohim meaning more than one Eloha. Eloha traced back to it's roots in Akkadian and Sumerian language literally meaning "one who from sky to earth came." Much like my name is Felstorm. I am a Human. I am one human. There are more than one human, there are human(s) plural. you have a name. Max. You are a human. You are one of many humans. So if YHVH is an Elohim/God, then it can be reasonably assumed that there might be more than one Elohim/God. But it says it best itself. "I bear witness to myself." How circular can you get? The writer is telling us that God said that God is telling us that he exists because he says he exists. Whatever

The people that wrote the Enuma Elish, which the first part of the Genesis Creation Epic is based upon, who also believed in "Annunaki", who had the same literal description as the semitic Elohim. "Those who from the sky to earth came". This is recorded on many clay tablets that predate even primitive Judaism by many hundreds of years. So the idea isn't orginal in any sense of the word. These first religions of the Akkadian and Sumerian civilisations in turn created their offshoots of polytheistic animistic religions. Egypt has one of the earliest most organised animistic religions. Attributing human qualities to animals and so on. And amazingly the stories of their deities are very similar to the Babylonians, while having different names, the tales are remarkably similar. Implying that these polythesitic religions had a potential common ancestor.

What is even more amazing, is cylinder seals from these very same ancient civilisations showing pictures and drawings of our solar system with all 9 planets, with an extra planet included. Somehow these people knew about something that could not be seen with the naked eye. And we know that they did not worship a singular YHVH deity. So it couldn't have been it that told these people about the rest of the solar system. After all they didn't believe in it. That religion didn't come about until many centuries later. And even then the bible is still a flat-earth book. It even talks about the circle of the earth being able to be picked up by it's "edges" and how it is held up by pillars at it's four corners, like a table. So that brings it's cosmology into question.

"And what are the pillars resting on?"

"A turtle."

"So what is the turtle standing on?"

"Another turtle. ad infinitum"

So these early Akkadian and Sumerian gods and godesses were just as powerful and real as your YHVH deity is to you. By your logic, we could assume that they have it right, and you have it wrong because you use your proof of existence for your deity to prove it's existense and validity. Likewise they can use their written proof for their existence of deity to prove itself.

I think we see alot of that. Again that explains why there are so many different religions all claiming that the others have it wrong because their subjective personal evidence is somehow stronger than the other guys. At no time in history has there ever been ONE definitive originating monotheistic religion that all others came from. Mankind has a history of making up supernatural phenomenon to explain that which they did not understand. And all of it has been equally as divergent and unique as the group of people that thought it up.

mike_decock

You are. Your theology does not allow you to accept an interpretation in which God lies to Adam about dying the day he eats the fruit.

Once again, you are guilty of an a priori interpretation because your theology doesn't allow for a god walking around playing peek-a-boo with Adam and Eve.

This is an a priori assumption necessitated by your theology.

And you failed to address that the "fugitive" and "vagabond" was married with child, building a city a few verses later. Jehovah was wrong again.

Of course... You are forced that make a priori assumptions that anything contradictory must be understood to be a specific nuance, case, implication, etc.

The mental gymnastics you go through to defend your theology is dizzying. I feel sorry for you.

-Mike...