Super Moderator florduh Posted March 25, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted March 25, 2009 I sometimes wonder how you guys can do it. My head's been bleeding for days, and I'm not even talking to the Squiddie. (There! I said the "S" word!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abiyoyo Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Like Hans, I am scratching my head as well. ****still eating popcorn - wondering if LNC will ever get to today's posts**** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 I actually discovered that I still can apply the squiddy if I want to... .... ... I'm sooooo tempted.... L4A, I learned something valuable from this discussion though, that you know some really good stuff! And Flor, one reason I kept Loony-Nut-Crazy around was to show some newbies how insane fundamentalists can become to defend their personal opinions and even claim them to be 'God's given truth'. I don't think anyone here doubts anymore how delusional some religious people can become. And I have to show a lot more patience when dealing with my family. I just think it gets really stupid when someone keeps on defending themselves when the evidence is piling up from all directions. Either you run away, or you admit you're wrong, but to keep on pushing it as the "truth" is just plain dumb. Yoyo, I think you'll run out of popcorn before then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted March 25, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted March 25, 2009 And Flor, one reason I kept Loony-Nut-Crazy around . . . Oh yeah, it's needed. I just don't know how you hang in there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Oh yeah, it's needed. I just don't know how you hang in there! Well, I also deal with you guys all day long! The Squiddy-war made my head spin... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted March 25, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted March 25, 2009 Yes, Hans, Reboot was right - you ARE a god! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 You're too kind Flor, but I'll settle for demiurge or just a saint. Dave is the Big Daddy here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abiyoyo Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Yoyo, I think you'll run out of popcorn before then. It's magical popcorn. Never runs out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Good for long movies. (This thread is getting a bit too long... again... and no resolution in sight.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNC Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 And if he's arguing from mistranslations here, how does he support his belief in hell? According to the Hebrew version of the OT, the word for hell is Sheol, which refers to the grave. The concept of hell as a place of eternal torture is a Christian invention that they stole from the Greeks. So, if LNC is going to be consistent with using correct translations, then he shouldn't believe in hell. Why does he cherry pick the Hebrew version of the bible when it comes to supporting the beliefs he agrees with but not when it comes to things that would be too inconvenient for him? And how does he explain the mistranslation of the word virgin in the Isaiah prophecy? You're right that Sheol is the word used for hell in the OT; however, you must realize that Hebrew has a much smaller vocabulary than other languages, such as Greek, so the context helps determine how the word is being used. Sheol has more than one interpretation and you are right that one of those interpretations is "grave," however, that is not the only appropriate interpretation of the word. Hell is also an appropriate usage in translating the word as it was also considered a nether world. I personally use English translations that leave the word as it is as "Sheol." I think that the more appropriate place to learn about hell is in the NT. Jesus actually refers to hell more than he does to heaven. Is it a Christian invention? Only if Jesus is not God, and I find the evidence for his divinity to be strong. Now, as to your accusation of "cherry picking," it is not I who am cherry picking. I am merely answering the questions that all of you are asking. If you think that I am cherry picking in some way, please show me how I am doing that. Regarding the translation of "virgin" from the OT, that was done long before Jesus was born by the Jewish translators of the LXX (3rd and 4th Century B.C.), so I would suggest that virgin is a very appropriate translation unless you believe that the Jewish translators had an Ax to grind or somehow mistranslated the word. Again, Hebrew has to be interpreted by context and they believed that a young woman is also most likely to be a virgin, which fits the wider context of the passage. No one would find it a prophesy to say that a young woman would be with child. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNC Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha? That is a good question; however, I think you mean Elijah and not Elisha. Now, as for the claim, I believe you are referring to 2 Kings 2, which is the story of Elijah being taken up into heaven by the chariot. Again, it goes by context. The same word for heaven (shamayim) is also used in many other contexts, including Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now, surely God did not create his eternal abode when he created the universe. It is simply a matter of understanding the context of the use of the word. In the NT verse (John 3:13) Jesus uses the word "ouranos" which is the abode of God. That would be a place that he would say that Elijah did not enter. Jesus was very familiar with Elijah as you might suspect since Jews believed the Elijah would return and Jesus said that the spirit of Elijah was embodied in John the Baptist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNC Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha? ... and Enoch. Another god question. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." Genesis 5:24; "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God." Hebrews 11:5 It simply does not say where he went, just that he walked with God and was not. We don't have anymore information to go by here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LNC Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 I never denied that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish; however, I still won't deny that when vomited up Jonah still had a free choice to make. I am not saying that God won't influence our choices, but he won't make them for us. Alright then LNC. If you say so. I don't see being swallowed by a fish, spit out from near death, a choice. It was after he recovered that he had a choice to obey or continue being stubborn and rebellious. BTW, we can have freedom, while still not experiencing complete freedom. We live in a free country, but that doesn't mean that we are free to do anything that we want. We can choose to do whatever we want, but then we face the risks of the consequences. Remember that Jonah was the one who admitted that the storm was probably because of his rebellion, and it was Jonah who suggested that the other sailors toss him overboard, and it was God who graciously delivered him back to shore alive when Jonah counted himself all but dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snafutopia Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Re the "virgin birth" thing -- not sure if the following is correct or not, and don't recall where I found it, but it's interesting and I'm counting on L4A to sort it out. (Thanks in advance!) Isaiah 7:14 "Hinneh ha'almah harah ve'yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanu'el" The original Hebrew words ha-almah mean "this young woman". If God had wanted Isaiah to call the young woman a "virgin", he would have used the word "bet'hula". Obviously this is not the case in this passage of scripture, because the words God inspired Isaiah to use say that this young woman was not a virgin -- she was already pregnant. Ha'arah is the Hebrew past or perfect tense, "conceived," which in Hebrew, as in English, represents past and completed action. Honestly translated, the verse reads: "Behold, this young woman is pregnant. She's going to give birth to a son and she's going to name him Immanuel." In context, Isaiah 7:14 described a situation in which King Ahaz of Judah is facing attack from two enemies. The shaman Isaiah declares that Ahaz's enemies will be vanquished and their own lands deserted. When will this occur? Isaiah points to the young pregnant woman and says, "The two enemy kingdoms will be destroyed before her child is old enough to know the difference between good and evil." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Regarding the translation of "virgin" from the OT, that was done long before Jesus was born by the Jewish translators of the LXX (3rd and 4th Century B.C.), so I would suggest that virgin is a very appropriate translation unless you believe that the Jewish translators had an Ax to grind or somehow mistranslated the word. I don't know how much of the translating was actually done by "Jewish translators". Perhaps it was limited to the first five books, which don't include prophets like Isaiah. http://www.messiahtruth.com/lxx.html Again, Hebrew has to be interpreted by context and they believed that a young woman is also most likely to be a virgin, which fits the wider context of the passage. No one would find it a prophesy to say that a young woman would be with child. Who was the sign for? Why do you say that no one would consider a young woman becoming pregnant and naming her child as a prophecy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Jesus was very familiar with Elijah as you might suspect since Jews believed the Elijah would return and Jesus said that the spirit of Elijah was embodied in John the Baptist. If Jesus was very familiar with Elijah, would he have placed Elijah into the body of a human that denied being Elijah? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looking4Answers Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 I believe you are referring to 2 Kings 2, which is the story of Elijah being taken up into heaven by the chariot. Again, it goes by context. Elijah was not taken up into heaven by a chariot. As you so aptly point out, its all about context. No, I am not going to give you the answer. I'll let you reason it out for yourself this time. The same word for heaven (shamayim) is also used in many other contexts, including Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now, surely God did not create his eternal abode when he created the universe. It is simply a matter of understanding the context of the use of the word. In the NT verse (John 3:13) Jesus uses the word "ouranos" which is the abode of God. That would be a place that he would say that Elijah did not enter. Sp where was Elijah taken to? Perhaps god put him on Mars? Maybe he is floating in the clouds? The common Christian understanding is that Elijah went to where god is to abide with him. The same is understood for Enoch. So your interpretations are going against the grain, so to speak. Jesus uses the word "ouranos" which is the abode of God. Really? Like the word "sheol" ouranos also has many interpretations. Here is what a standard lexicon says about ouranos: 1) the vaulted expanse of the sky with all things visible in it 1a) the universe, the world 1b) the aerial heavens or sky, the region where the clouds and the tempests gather, and where thunder and lightning are produced 1c) the sidereal or starry heavens 2) the region above the sidereal heavens, the seat of order of things eternal and consummately perfect where God dwells and other heavenly beings Please note that the first interpretation is that of the sky. The context of John 3:13 is no more clear than the Kings passage about Elijah. So it could be the sky, outer space or the abode of god. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 The verse never did apply to me as I am not of Jewish heritage and the Law and commandments were given as part of the Mosaic Covenant which was for the Jews. It would be like asking me when the British law stopped applying to me. It never did. It doesn't apply to you??? This Law isn't British law, or human law, it's a perfect, eternal, absolute moral standard. Exactly how does a perfect and absolute moral standard not apply to those that claim to follow the source of the standard, which is God? What does God say about those that turn away from this Law to follow other beliefs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looking4Answers Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 @Pope Flippant: I've dealt with the virgin birth thing until I am sick to death of looking at it. I will PM you with an article I wrote on the subject. Let me sum it up here: - The word "virgin" is the Hebrew word "almah" which typically means a young lady or maiden, virgin or otherwise - The sign is clearly to Ahaz, the king, to comfort him concerning the two nations that were "confederate" against him - The sign was to take place very soon (before the child born was to be old enough to discern between good and evil) Since Ahaz was king hundreds of years before the supposed birth of Christ, Christ's birth could not be a sign to this king. There is more, but these are the facts in a nut shell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snafutopia Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Thanks! I look forward to reading that. Specifically I'm curious about "Ha'arah" -- does it indeed "represent past and completed action"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 25, 2009 Author Share Posted March 25, 2009 I remember how the Church I belonged to in Sweden used this verse, including other verses, to justify why we should use the spanking to raise our kids. Amazing isn't it? Stoning becomes spanking, but unruly or rebellious are still the same.I don't understand why using the death penalty for being unruly adult sons and daughters suddenly makes it more moral than stoning disobedient children anyway. Even putting aside the whole debate about the morality of the death penalty, in modern societies that use it, we usually only reserve the death penalty for the most horrible criminals like serial killers and terrorists, but apparently LNC thinks it's justified to use it for your regular unruly thief or something. Yeah, that's so much more moral. You'd think God has never heard of the concept of prison or something. You're right that Sheol is the word used for hell in the OT; however, you must realize that Hebrew has a much smaller vocabulary than other languages, such as Greek, so the context helps determine how the word is being used. Sheol has more than one interpretation and you are right that one of those interpretations is "grave," however, that is not the only appropriate interpretation of the word. Hell is also an appropriate usage in translating the word as it was also considered a nether world. I personally use English translations that leave the word as it is as "Sheol." I think that the more appropriate place to learn about hell is in the NT. Jesus actually refers to hell more than he does to heaven. Is it a Christian invention? Only if Jesus is not God, and I find the evidence for his divinity to be strong.But in the NT, the word for hell is Gehenna, which was referring symbolically to a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. Also, it should be pointed out that the NT has completely conflicting beliefs about hell and who goes there as well as what hell actually is: http://www.religioustolerance.org/aft_bibl3.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looking4Answers Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 You'd think God has never heard of the concept of prison or something. It is an interesting observation that not one of the OT civil laws calls for imprisonment of any kind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 It is an interesting observation that not one of the OT civil laws calls for imprisonment of any kind. Very true! One would think God would invent that system instead of threatening with eternal punishment, if the goal is to teach us to behave correctly. Instead God tells Moses that the punishment for rape is to marry the victim, and pay a fine to the parents for their loss of property value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha? That is a good question; however, I think you mean Elijah and not Elisha. Now, as for the claim, I believe you are referring to 2 Kings 2, which is the story of Elijah being taken up into heaven by the chariot. Again, it goes by context. The same word for heaven (shamayim) is also used in many other contexts, including Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now, surely God did not create his eternal abode when he created the universe. It is simply a matter of understanding the context of the use of the word. In the NT verse (John 3:13) Jesus uses the word "ouranos" which is the abode of God. That would be a place that he would say that Elijah did not enter. Jesus was very familiar with Elijah as you might suspect since Jews believed the Elijah would return and Jesus said that the spirit of Elijah was embodied in John the Baptist. To quote you, "that does not follow". Where in blazes did Elijah go then? Is he still floating through the universe trying to get to Heaven? Same goes for Enoch. As for this vigin deal. How many times do you have to repeat the same old garbage? You have yet to give any evidence that the Jews had "virgin" there instead of young woman. Also, the prophecy in mention in Isaiah is regarding King Ahaz and the current situation at that time. There is screw all that says it was actually talking about the distant future. Furthermore, if they had virgin there then why didn't they believe in Christ when he was born of a virgin years later? Give evidence of what you are saying, give something. I have googled it again and again and cannot find anything that goes along with what you are saying. I mean nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shantonu Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Amongst many, i would like to hear what he says about when Jesus said that no man has ascended up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, himself. I guess Jesus failed to read the OT and about Elisha? That is a good question; however, I think you mean Elijah and not Elisha. Now, as for the claim, I believe you are referring to 2 Kings 2, which is the story of Elijah being taken up into heaven by the chariot. Again, it goes by context. The same word for heaven (shamayim) is also used in many other contexts, including Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now, surely God did not create his eternal abode when he created the universe. It is simply a matter of understanding the context of the use of the word. In the NT verse (John 3:13) Jesus uses the word "ouranos" which is the abode of God. That would be a place that he would say that Elijah did not enter. Jesus was very familiar with Elijah as you might suspect since Jews believed the Elijah would return and Jesus said that the spirit of Elijah was embodied in John the Baptist. You copycat! How many times do I have to bust you before you quit? Some skeptics charge Jesus with missing out on Elijah being first to "ascend into heaven" but the solution is the same as it is today: The Hebrew word translated "heaven" in the first verse. shamiyim, simply means the sky, as "heavens" does metaphorically today. The "heavens" were also regarded as the abode of God, but at the time of 2 Kings there was as yet no conception of "Heaven" with a capital H as the special abode of God shared with His people. The Greek word in the second verse, ouranos, can also mean the sky, but it is also used in the sense of God's realm (as in, the "Kingdom of Heaven" [ouranos]. Note John 3:27 "John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven." The word carries theological freight that shamiyim does not. Therefore, there is no conflict in these verses, for 2 Kings merely asserts where Elijah went physically and carries no theological overtones http://www.tektonics.org/af/firstascent.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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