Jeffrey Gibson

You are the one who brought it up. And why do I suspect that this plea of yours arises from the fact that you cannot back up the claims you made about the "data" in the addendum?

Leaving aside the fact that there is no such assertion in the OP and that you are now (and once again) misrepresenting what you said there, let's note that you have yet to demonstrate not only that "guardian spirit" is the meaning that δαίμονες possesses in Matthew or that the usage of the term with this meaning is an unusual one. More importantly, you are now contradicting yourself. Didn't you note just a few post ago that "guardian spirit" was the meaning that δαίμων generally had???





Didn't you also note that this was the case in the Greek classical tradition?


So if "guardian spirit" was the general meaning of the term before Matthew, Matthew can hardly be subverting its meaning by using it to mean "guardian spirit".

In any event, you have certainly not provided any evidence whatsoever that the term τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον (the opposite of which is not δαίμων but [τὸ] πνεῦμα [τὸ] ἀκάθαρτον) meant "guardian spirit" , let alone that early Christians (not to mention Matthew) thought of the HS in this way or as a replacement of anything.

You have no case until you do.

And what's with the assertion that Matthew was paving the way for a doctrine of the "holy spirit". Are you actually saying that Christians had no doctrine of τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον until after Matthew was wriiten??

Sorry, Pete. But this is just more horseshit. Your conclusions are agenda, not evidenced, based. And once again you show that you have no idea what you are talking about.


Jeffrey

stephan huller

Say it isn't so. I was just getting ready to shave my head and join the mountainpeople commune and live among the kangaroos. Now maybe I will have to rethink

Jeffrey Gibson

Really?? Can you provide some documentation that "back then" (when exactly" Jews who did not call Yahweh ὁ κύριος had their heads cut off, let alone risked doing so?

To me, it is simply inconceivable that YHWH could be equated with a mere human, i.e. a kurios.

Er what? Are you actually claiming that Greek speakers never used the title ὁ κύριος for anyone or anything other than a human being? That there are no instances in the whole of surviving literature that show ὁ κύριος was an epithet for, or a form of address to, or a way of speaking about, divinities?

I note, too, in passing, that appealing to what is inconceivable to you as grounds for asserting what must be is simply to engage in the fallacy of personal incredulity

( http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity)

and that your use of such an argument to make your case indicates -- that you are not as familar with the data as you should be and don't possess the knowledge you lay claim to.

What lexicons and reference works have you consulted to come to this conclusion? You haven't checked your claim out against the data about the usage of κύριος that your find in LSJ or BDAG or TDNt, have you.
And yet you intimated that you did have sound knowledge of this in your claim that the use of the word by Justin had to be a forgery!
Leaving aside the fact which you seem to be unaware of that the Vulgate uses "sculptilis" to render כְשָׁפִ֖ים "sorceries", so what? All that means is that Jerome was giving the literal Latin equivalent of what he (or Lucian) found in the Hebrew text of Ps. 96. It has no bearing on whether אֱלִילִ֑ים
(or for that matter "sculptillis") was thought to mean, or connoted, "evil spirits" -- a point that you have yet to deal with, and, notably, keep avoiding.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Say what isn't so?

Jeffrey

stephan huller

that mountainman is full of shit

tanya

You are correct, as usual, Jeffrey, I am unaware that the Vulgate translated םכְשָׁפִ֖י "sorceries".

Here's my source of Psalms 96:5:
And here is an English translation of this passage, in a version I find most compatible with my understanding of the context.
And here is the Douay Rheims version of the same Hebrew text:

Your idea, Jeffrey, may well be correct, it certainly is in harmony with Douay Rheims. My idea may be dead wrong, it is associated with one of the least popular versions of the bible.

My understanding of Latin, is extraordinarily mediocre, I am certainly in the bottom 10 percentile among forum participants, so, I am not writing here, to challenge your skill with Latin (nor Greek, obviously, nor Hebrew). But, Jeffrey, when it comes to English, I may not have been a Rhodes Scholar, but I know how to ask my way to the little girl's room, without any difficulty. In English, obviously derived from Latin, a SCULPTURE, is something CARVED, and if one looks at some dictionaries, "sculptilia", is derived from the word meaning TO CARVE.

Idols are CARVED impressions, either in stone, or wood. They are not "sorcerers", or "demons" or "devils".

Idols, at least where I attended grammar school, were INANIMATE objects, not deities, not anthropomorphic entities, like "sorcerers", "demons", or "devils". One doesn't CARVE a sorcerer, or a demon, or a devil. In fact, much of the literature of ancient times was focused on just how one COULD dispatch a demon. They aren't easy to eliminate. By contrast, the idols could be gathered up, burned--if carved wood, or smashed to bits--if carved from stone.

So, then, the OP really boils down to this:

Does the Hebrew word in Psalms 96:5, variously translated as "Sorcerers", "Demons", or "Devils", by one tendency, and by "idols" in the Lucianic recension, upon which Vulgate is based, correspond, in Hebrew thinking, to an inanimate, carved object, or to an anthropomorphic supernatural deity?

I may comprehend extraordinarily little of Latin, and a lot less Greek, but I know zilch about Hebrew. I will therefore defer to your experience, and linguistic acumen here, Jeffrey, which is it? Was Jerome in error? Was Lucian wrong? Does the Hebrew word here, correspond to a supernatural being, or to an inanimate object of worship?

stephan huller

Why is it that people who follow mountainman into the abyss don't become suspicious that none of his ideas has any basis other than shared hatred and suspicion of Christianity and the comfort that a half-baked conspiracy theory provides to explain its origins?

Jeffrey Gibson

So you base your notion of which translations are most accurate on whether or not they correspond with what you believe, notably apart from a knowledge of Hebrew or Greek, they should say and which fit with your admittedly under or uninformed understanding of their context? Have you actually looked at the context of Ps. 96?
Actually -- as you do not seem to know, the Douay Rheims version is a translation of the Vulgate, not the MT or any other Hebrew text.


Which apparently read sculptilis as a word which bore the meaning "evil spirits".

The Word translation?? The Jehovah's Witness' Bible????

So you are telling me that your are going to use your knowledge of what an English word (now) means as the touchstone and authoritative guide for determining what a Hebrew or Latin word which is translated as "idols" had to mean and could only mean for Hebrew and Latin writers?

Where do we find any English translation that uses "sorceries" of anything within the Hebrew text of Ps 96:5?

First off, the Vulgate does not use English words in its translation of any Hebrew OT text, let alone that of Ps. 95:6. It uses a form of sculptilis which was, as its use in Micah 5:12 to render כְשָׁפִ֖ים shows, was quite obviously understood to have a range of meanings including but not limited to "carved things".

Second, you are still assuming -- without any good reason to do so and without any evidence to back up your assumption, let alone any requisite study in the relevant lexicons and reference works to check its validity -- that for a Hebrew speaker the word that gets rendered with a form of sculptilis in the Vulgate and by δαιμόνια in the LXX could and did not have any meaning, denotation, or connotation other than "something carved".

As you would know if you'd done what is apparent you have not done (and inexplicably will not do), namely checked Brown Driver Briggs and the TDOT to discover what the semantic range of אֱלִילִ֑ים is/was, this is a false dichotomy. The word does both -- and more.

So your question is absolutely fallacious.

But you are correct in one thing: You do indeed comprehend extraordinarily little of Latin, and less of Greek, and know zilch about Hebrew.

The real question though is not only why, given this, you keep telling us what Greek and Hebrew and Latin words have to mean, but why you expect anyone to take you seriously, and why you get miffed when they don't?

I think it is in your best interest -- unless you want to continue to show yourself as a rank amateur in matters Hebrew Latin and Greek, and giving readers here great ammunition for thinking that, despite your posing as someone who speaks authoritatively and should be listened to, you don't have any knowledge about the NT and the ancient world -- hat you have been doing - that you stop doing this.

Jeffrey


P.S. I note with interest not only that you have decided (1) to dodge my question about whether you actually claim that Greek speakers never used the title ὁ κύριος for anyone or anything other than a human being, and whether there are actually no instances in the whole of surviving Greek 8th cent. BCE to 1st cent CE literature that show ὁ κύριος was used as an epithet for, or a form of address to, or a way of speaking about, divinities; But (2) that you have not provided as I asked you to do evidence for the validity of your assertion that "back then" Jews who did not call Yahweh ὁ κύριος risked having their heads cut off, let alone actually experienced decapitation.

Why not?

Is it because, as with your assertions about the semantic range and meaning of אֱלִילִ֑ים and sculptilis, you are talking through your hat?

Jeffrey Gibson

Leaving aside the fact that most of them seem not to have the linguistic competence to be able to judge the arguments he makes on the basis of (English translations of) Greek texts or are in any way grounded in the primary sources or have real knowledge of the history of the period, I think it's because they judge what is "true" on the basis of "what fits and confirms my prejudices".

Jeffrey

Sabine Grant

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