You missed my point Chris, but that’s ok.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
There is something I think you are missing here - there are two different groups of readers we are talking about, and neither of those groups are “scholars of old, those prior to the NT.”
The first group is the scholars of the NT - I.e., the apostles who wrote the NT books and did exegesis of the OT. These WERE scholars prior to the NT. They were Second Temple Jews using many of the same hermeneutical methods as other Second Temple Jews! So you cannot simply dismiss arguments based on how Second Temple Jews would have read the text.
More importantly, the second group is the original audience Genesis 1 was intended for. I’ll try this in steps.
-
Once again, the doctrine of inspiration as understood by the earliest church precludes your argument that the human author of Genesis 1 did not know EXACTLY why and what he meant by including the plural in his portrayal of God’s speech in 1:26.
-
Consequently, he had an audience in mind for whom that revelation was originally intended, and given the language he used, his style, and his use of the tropes and genres only available to those of his own time period, the most likely audience is the one contemporaneous with himself.
-
Therefore, we have to ask how that audience would have read the text, because it was specifically written to be understood by them.
-
Since we have no evidence that those living before the last half of the first century A.D. thought of God as a trinity (and arguably, even those who did think of God as such - Christians - didn’t even have it fully worked out yet), it is probable that the Trinity was NOT part of the religious framework of the original audience of Genesis 1:26. In other words, they would not have filled in the gaps in the text (i.e., to whom else God refers in 1:26) with the Trinity; it would have required explanation in the text itself.
-
If that’s the case, then there HAS to have been a way of making sense out of Genesis 1:26 that employs ONLY the categories available to the original readers, those to whom the text was initially addressed.
-
And finally, if such an interpretation must therefore exist, there is no need at all for the Trinitarian interpretation of Genesis 1:26.
[/quote]
Perhaps not for the original audience, but I wholly disagree that you are to look at the texts as through the paradigm of the original audience. It’s important to know that view, but that’s not the same as saying “That view is correct and all others are wrong” by default. Simply because the original audience was close in culture, language and understanding does not make they’re reading of it right, by default. They had those advantages, but that in itself makes their interpretations right to the exception of others especially others with more scriptural information.
[/quote]
When I’m talking about reading like the “original” audience, I’m not talking about making our interpretations match those of some actual, particular group of people who have left behind evidence of their interpretation, per se. I’m talking about the implied audience, which is once again a construct of the text (like the implied author). As I noted in point 2 above, dozens of discernible literary features of the text together delineate the sort of audience for whom the author wrote. The audience the author intended to understand his work shared his cultural context, his language, his most basic assumptions about the nature of the world. Thus, only to the extent that you can read his text approximating the familiarity of context, language, etc. that he presumed his audience to have can you be said to understand it.
In short, the author shows us through the text who he expects to understand him. The extent to which you approximate that intended reader is the extent to which you understand it. This intended audience’s interpretation IS, by definition, the correct answer. Since, once again, there is no evidence that Genesis’ author knew of the Trinity himself nor was writing for an audience that did, the only logical assumption is that there is a non-Trinitarian interpretation of his work possible, available to us or not, and THIS interpretation is the one the author intended his readers to get. Thus, the Trinitarian interpretation is unnecessary.
[quote] Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
Going back the Gen 1 and then reconciling it with John 1, what then makes more sense? A heavenly counsel that is not mentioned, or a manifestation of God through whom all that exists was made and that without him, could not be made? John 1 tells us something about creation which Genesis did not. The plural self reference in Gen 1 becomes much easier to reconcile with the revelation of John 1.
First of all, I can turn this question right back at you. What makes more sense - that in a text written by a man before even the existence of God’s own SON Jesus was known, the author assumed his audience would recognize the divine council motif, a standard feature of the genre in which he was writing, as soon as he mentioned “us,” OR that he possessed a revelation of God’s plurality unknown to any Jews before OR after him and simply FORGOT to clarify both that the “us” God was referring to was Godself AND what God’s plurality entailed?
[/quote]
It may have been their assumption. It certainly was a problem they had to reconcile, however it does not entail that they were right. They also thought the earth was flat and buzzards were good to eat. What doesn’t make sense is the presence of a heaven counsel, even if they thought so.
Why turn the question around rather than answer it?
[/quote]
That was an answer, Pat. You framed the question in a way that makes only one answer appear logical - your’s. So I reframed the question in a way that makes MY position look like the more logical one. The point is that the way you framed the question left out important information about my position; that was intellectually dishonest. You certainly didn’t intend it to be, but it was.
In case you still want more clarification - Yes, it is more logical that the author of Genesis 1:26 refers to a divine council by “us,” despite the fact that the council is NOT explicitly mentioned, than that he is referring to an intra-Trinitarian conversation, given that the Trinity was not known to the author or his audience.
Moreover, just because you’ve seen a problem in Genesis 1:26, that doesn’t mean that the original audience saw a problem there. Once again, if it’s a high context document, the possibility ALWAYS exists that there will be statements that you simply lack the conceptual framework to answer, a framework they, on the other hand, would have had. So you don’t know that it was “certainly a problem they had to reconcile.”
And I don’t get the point of your ethnocentric comment about “buzzards” and “a flat earth.” Jews weren’t allowed to eat “buzzards;” why would you assume they thought they were “good” to eat? Does the fact that the Torah prohibits murder indicate that, before they received it, the Jews thought murder was “good?” More importantly, I don’t understand how the apostle John or the author of Genesis were any different - they TOO believed that the earth was flat. It’s MORE than likely, during his first appearance, that Jesus too believed the earth was flat. So what’s your point?
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]kingkai wrote:
Secondly, Genesis 1:26 doesn’t NEED reconciled with John 1! It doesn’t need reconciliation because NO New Testament author EVER claims that Genesis 1:26 is a reference to the Trinity. ONLY if that were to occur (since the NT is an authoritative source) would I necessarily HAVE to read Genesis 1:26 as a reference to the Trinity. Once again, given the concept of representation which was part of the cultural context, John may have assumed that it was actually Jesus who did the creating in Genesis 1 (i.e., that the references to God as creator are references to the pre-incarnate Christ), or possibly that Jesus was indeed the “logos” through which God created the world, i.e., his actual spoken word.
[/quote]
If you want to treat each book as mutually exclusive, perhaps. But there is pressure place on Genesis by John 1 that has to be dealt with. If all things were ‘made through Him’ it stands to reason that Jesus was part and parcel to the creation process. And if that’s true, then we have to reconcile how that fits in with Genesis’s account of creation.
[/quote]
I’m not treating each book as “mutually exclusive;” that would mean I’m arguing they are contradictory. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I am treating them as individual books written at different times in the history of God’s progressive revelation. I am saying that the mere fact that your church (and unfortunately, mine) juxtaposed a bunch of them within a single volume does NOT imply that they are chapters of a single work by a single author. They are an entire series of books written at different times by individuals with differing levels of knowledge. More is known in Jesus’ time about the resurrection of the dead, the nature of God, etc., than was known by the patriarchs. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that you can read later revelation back into books written before that revelation was given.
You seem to have this idea that there are all these gaps in the earlier Scriptures that the later ones fill in. My point all along has been that what you perceive as gaps often weren’t gaps at all when the text was written. This is the same point I made to Jaypierce. Genesis was a coherent work LONG before John ever wrote his gospel.
And I agree with you that we have to reconcile the fact that John says Jesus was involved in creation with the absence of any clear mention of Jesus in Genesis 1. But once again, I don’t have to insert Jesus into Genesis 1:26 to do so, and there is nothing in John’s statements that leads me to believe that, when he says “everything was made” through Jesus, John was interpreting Genesis 1:26 as a reference to Jesus.
I don’t think you understand that this notion of Jesus’ involvement in creation was not necessarily some piece of revelation dropped into John’s mind. On the contrary - as was the case with the rest of the apostles, John came to this realization through the application of pre-existent, Second Temple Jewish theological categories in his interpretation of the life and work of Jesus. They already HAD notions of someone being an agent through whom God created the world; they already HAD identified this figure with “logos.” And my point in saying all this is, once again, that they already HAD ways of reconciling the narrative of Genesis 1 with the concept that God created through an intermediary of some sort. What John brings to the table is not a completely new category, but a new referent - JESUS is now seen as the intermediary figure.
And the point of what I just said is, if John was using a pre-existing, Second Temple Jewish framework in John 1, then it is perfectly logical that we should look there first to see how Genesis 1 is reconciled with the notion of an intermediary.
[quote] Pat wrote:
God created everything through Jesus. The fact that early interpreters were not aware of that seems to me irrelevant now.
[/quote]
And what about the fact that the author ALSO wasn’t aware of it? You’re saying that the guy who composed the text, who had a perfectly legitimate meaning in mind when he portrayed the divine speech in Genesis 1:26, was probably wrong in his interpretation of his own meaning?
[quote] Pat wrote:
[quote] Kingkai wrote:
Based on the above, the concept of the Trinity is NOT necessary to understand Genesis 1:26; the burden of proof is actually on you to show that the Trinitarian interpretation is even a legitimate reading of Genesis 1:26 at all.
[/quote]
Like previously stated, John 1 puts Jesus in the process of creation. Now the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, but Jesus is. Most certainly, no counsel is mentioned. You talk about burden of proof, yet the only proof you are offering me is the potentially flawed understanding of the ancient Hebrews.
Because that’s what they thought, doesn’t make it so.
[/quote]
Given everything else that I’ve said (and your failure to refute any of my points so far), here’s essentially what I’m reading…
“John says Jesus was there in creation. Therefore, since I have to find him somewhere in there (and refuse to accept any Second Temple Jewish explanations for what they, and Second Temple Jew John , meant by ), I say he’s part of the “us” in Genesis 1:26. I don’t care whether or not a bunch of ignorant, buzzard-eating, flat-earth believing Hebrews (both WHO wrote the text and BY WHOM the text was meant to be understood) believed they meant when they produced and read that text.”
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
[quote]Pat wrote:
I really don’t see why not. There is much that God has revealed over time. Why wouldn’t God do just that. Reveal later what he meant by something earlier. Seems to me that God does this often especially with regards to prophecy. The prophets or the scholars don’t know what the prophecy is or means at the time of composition, but is revealed later when it has been fulfilled.
Certainly Jesus would not have been chucked from the Temple when he said “This prophecy has been fulfilled in your hearing” if they knew what it meant.
[/quote]
Your prophets analogy doesn’t work at all. First, prophecy is a completely different genre then narrative; you cannot compare an ostensibly directly spoken promise of God about a future act with a discussion of events that have already happened. Secondly, and more importantly, God didn’t write Genesis 1:26; a human being did under inspiration, a doctrinal term assumed by those who coined it to entail that the human being knew what he meant by what he wrote. Finally, according to 1 Peter 1:10-12, the prophets DID know that their prophecies were about Christ; they simply did not know the precise time or exact circumstances surrounding the fulfillment.
[/quote]
LOL! That’s mighty convenient. The prophesies were also written by people.
[/quote]
Haha you’re actually more correct than you think, Pat. In any case, for the sake of argument and simplicity here, I will say that prophetic inspiration is closer to the “divine dictation” model than the kind of inspiration we find in narrative.
Not an accurate comparison, Pat. First of all, I never said that the texts were mutually exclusive (i.e., contradictory); I don’t think that’s the phrase you intend to use anyway. I also didn’t say that one text cannot bear on another. In any case where the NT makes a definitive statement about an OT passage, that is an appropriate interpretation of that passage; I said as much in my previous comments about John 1. What you’re missing, however, is that John 1 does NOT make a definitive statement about how Genesis 1:26 should be interpreted. If I had clear evidence indicating that John was interpreting Genesis 1:26 as a reference to Jesus, as someone who recognizes the authority of Scripture, I would demur. But you don’t have that evidence, Pat; there is no indication that Genesis 1:26 is where John locates Jesus’ presence in the narrative. Therefore, I have no reason to read a Trinitarian (or even Binitarian) concept back into Genesis 1:26.
I definitely disagree with the way you’re reading Isaiah there, but the interpretation of OT prophetic literature is a much bigger topic than we need to get into right now.
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
And why wouldn’t God do that, you ask? Perhaps because it places us automatically above those who existed before Christ in spiritual stature. In other words, your question implies that God didn’t care if his chosen people Israel understood the Scriptures; he only cared if the people who lived after Christ understood the Scriptures. Genesis then wouldn’t really be revelation for the Jews; it would only be revelation for us. But even if that explanation fails to convince you, the fact remains that we have no evidence that God did leave gaps in the OT only to fill them in later, and in the absence of such evidence, we should be very wary of making claims about what GOD does or doesn’t do.
[/quote]
Oh brother! The way you misread what I say, or draw ridiculous conclusions from it does cause me to wonder a little. Are you doing that on purpose? Where in the hell are you getting that I am ‘implying’ God didn’t care about his chosen people and whether they understood the scriptures. Why wouldn’t Genesis prophecy a little too about Jesus, as Moses did?
[/quote]
Look, Pat, that wasn’t an ethical indictment, so chill. Seriously. I’ll recant my use of “implies,” but I stand by the basic thrust of my statement - your suggestion that God left gaps in the text which could only be filled out by Christians implies that God cared less about them than he does us, insofar as he provided them with texts that were ostensibly revelatory but that they would never understand. And Genesis 1:26 isn’t a prophecy, so why WOULD it prophesy about Jesus?
[quote] Pat wrote:
[quote]kingkai wrote:
I basically answered this above. Your argument is that, given that the text does not explicitly state that either a council or the Trinity is the referent, and we have references to Jesus’ agency in creation, the Trinitarian reading makes more sense. My point is that, since Genesis is a high context document written as revelation to a specific group of people long predating the first century Jews and Christians, I have to come up with a reason why the explanation is left out. Since the heavenly council is a stock feature of origin accounts, it wouldn’t NEED to be explicitly laid out for them; the allusion to “us” could be sufficient code to make the message clear to the original audience. The Trinitarian reading, on the other hand, WOULD require explanation at ANY TIME before the late first century A.D. And once again, the NT Scriptures at no point prescribe how Genesis 1:26 is supposed to be read; John’s claim that Jesus was involved in creation does not constitute an implicit claim about the meaning of Genesis 1:26.
[/quote]
Where is this heavenly counsel a stock feature in the story of creation? I get the point already that the early interpreters thought this. I understand that they are considered ‘high context’ in that they are closer in time, culture, language, life style, etc. I still don’t see how any of that actually matters. Where is the first mention of this counsel, 1 King 22? Is there mention before that? Even so, that’s still a good bit away from Genesis. Why should we take an flying inference that requires a whole host of assumptions versus the more direct explanation that the scriptures actually say?
[/quote]
I don’t think I’ve made myself sufficiently clear, as you DON’T really understand what I’m saying. First of all, the involvement of a divine council in creation, especially the creation of humankind, is a stock feature of ancient Near Eastern origin accounts/ creation myths. Again and again and again, you find (1) a particular god wants to create humanity; (2) this god convenes a council with the other gods to deliberate; (3) humanity is then created. This is just a stock feature of creation accounts in the ancient Near Eastern world, and especially in those texts most similar to Genesis. In other words, it’s a feature of the genre, just like voice-over narration is an stock feature of noir films.
Secondly, I wasn’t saying that “the early interpreters thought this;” my point, as I explained above, is that, given the prevalence of this stock feature, the intended audience would have expected its presence. And I’m not simply saying “they” are high context; I’m saying that Genesis is itself a high context document, meaning that it “anticipates” an audience who shares the same cultural framework, assumptions, language, etc., as the author.
And finally, I am stunned that you don’t see how absolutely self-contradictory (and borderline nonsensical) your “1 Kings 22” argument is. First, [even if your reading of John 1 as a interpretation about Genesis 1:26 were right), John’s gospel is WAY farther away (both canonically and temporally) from Genesis than 1 Kings! More importantly, canonical ordering has NOTHING to do with the compositional chronology of the various texts. It’s more than likely, for example, that 1 Kings 22 was composed around the same time as Genesis’ final redaction (editing). Moreover, Job, a book which clearly evinces the divine council motif, is (arguably) one of the earliest texts in the Hebrew Bible; if so, then it actually predates Genesis. Moreover, the reference to “the number of the sons of god/angels” in Deut. 32:8 (the reading “Israel” is corrupt) is also an allusion to notion of a heavenly council - the ancient Israelites, as well as the Second Temple Jews, believed that God gave charge over the various nations to different angelic beings while retaining special oversight of Israel. Since Deuteronomy was almost certainly composed before Genesis, we have ample evidence that the notion of a divine council was not ONLY a part of the wider ancient Near Eastern cosmology, but that this idea functioned in Israelite thought as well.
[quote] Pat wrote:
The scripture states nowhere that the ‘Heavenly Hosts’ were present or a part of creation. The scripture does state that God as Father and Jesus were part and present at creation. You’re expecting me to accept the interpretation of the scripture that the scripture does not actually say, over something the scripture does actually say?
What the scripture actually says without interpretation is that God made man in his image and that all things were made through Jesus. These things are stated explicitly. You got a tough sale for me to accept that something that was mentioned some 9 books later was the co-participant in creation simply because the early Hebrews thought so.
[/quote]
I dealt with the ridiculous final statement in the comment above already. As for the presence of Father and Son at creation, you continue to miss the point - the mere fact that John says the Son of was present at creation does NOT mean that God’s reference to “us” indicates an intra-Trinitarian conversation. There’s a whole other logical step that you are missing; at most, all you can say is that Jesus could be the other person God is talking to, and given the fact that this text already made sense to the author who didn’t know of Jesus, that “could” quickly becomes “couldn’t.”
As for this notion of the divine image, I think you have an absolutely mistaken notion of what “being made in the divine image” means. It’s not a reference to some sort of inherent capabilities - intellectual or moral - that human beings possess, Pat. We have ample evidence of the term’s use in ancient sources, and it is a reference, first and foremost, to the sort of function human beings are intended to fill in the world. They function, in other words, as God’s vice-regents; they rule over and care for the earth as his representatives. Guess what - the angels do exactly the same thing (Deut. 32:8, Dan. 10). Now we can sit and debate all day long about what characteristics of human beings allow them to fulfill this role - intellectual and moral capabilities, for example - but the image of God refers to their function, not to the characteristics by which they fulfill that function.
[quote]Pat wrote:
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
“Tools” are not the same thing as “raw material.” When I say that a certain method - a tool - can help us better understand the biblical text, I’m not saying that this tool will unlock meaning unknown to ANYONE before. I’m saying that it can help me read a little more like the original audience for whom the texts were written would intuitively read. That’s VERY different from what you have claimed at different points to defend your Trinitarian reading, i.e., that the human author wrote a passage that was meaningless to him and his audience, which God intended to supply the cognitive information (“the raw material”) necessary for understanding later. That’s a hidden meaning, Pat; a meaning intentionally left unrevealed for a thousand years is a hidden meaning, in so far as it was hidden from a people group for their entire history.
[/quote]
And that will get you as far as they got. I did not imply, state, or otherwise infer “hidden meanings”. I resent the shallowness of that accusation. Understanding something differently when you have come in to more knowledge is not the same as ‘looking for hidden meanings’.
[/quote]
You can resent it all you want, but it’s an accurate description of what you’re talking about. This isn’t a case of having a “fuller” understanding once you have more knowledge. Given everything I’ve said (and you’ve failed to refute), all you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter how the text’s author even understood his text; God meant something different by Genesis 1:26 than the author did, and the meaning that God want to communicate by Genesis 1:26 was completely unavailable to his chosen people prior to the coming of Jesus. That means that the proper interpretation of Genesis 1:26 was HIDDEN; it’s a hidden meaning. It’s really that simple. If you’d analyze your assumptions instead of just rolling with whatever you think a term means, you’d see that there’s no reason to resent my statement.
[quote] Pat wrote:
[quote] Kingkai wrote:
[quote] Pat wrote:
I am figuring more that what they understood as God’s nature was a given and didn’t require a full explanation where that understanding got lost in later generations as the word was spread and understood through cultural paradigms. So as to why didn’t NT writers just state it that way? Well, perhaps they couldn’t imagine we’d be so dense as to need it broken down like that. They also didn’t seem to write in a way that would suggest that the world would last much longer.
[/quote]
You’re missing my point here, Pat. Given what we know about Jewish conceptions of God in the first century AS WELL AS the trouble the earliest Christians (also first century A.D.) had making sense of it themselves, the idea that the apostles would have held to essentially the Trinitarian formulations of the 4th-5th centuries and considered such formulations self-evident is ludicrous. The fact that we find ZERO evidence of strife between Christians and Jews over Jesus’ divinity until John’s gospel (circa 85 A.D.) suggests either (A) the apostles didn’t talk much about Jesus’ divinity with outsiders, or (B) the apostles had some other way of understanding it than the Trinitarian formulation.
Moreover, this is a VERY, VERY unCatholic argument on your part. If the understanding of the Trinity was lost as the gospel spread to Gentiles and only was recovered centuries later, why shouldn’t I suppose that the proper understanding of the Eucharist as a simple commemorative meal was lost among the Gentiles and MISTAKENLY interpreted as a sacrifice instead?
[/quote]
Very un-Catholic? I never said it was lost as the Gospel spread to the gentiles! I said what may have been a ‘given’ in apostolic times was not as explicitly understood later. It’s not a loss of message. It’s a change of culture, the result of the grape vine, the invasion of heresy, the spreading of false gospels and false epistles, etc. All played a role in requiring an explicit dogmatic statement that should not be misunderstood.
I am puzzled at this to be frank. Why accuse me of being “uncatholic” if not to take a jab? If you think that was unCatholic, then you don’t know much about it.
[/quote]
Once again, chill out. I said that was an unCatholic argument; I wasn’t questioning your Catholicity. You said that the full understanding of God’s nature was lost in later generations; in other words, what Paul, Peter, and the rest meant when they said, “Jesus is God” was lost. That IS the loss of a message resulting from a change of culture, grape vine, heresy’s invasion, etc. EVERYTHING YOU’VE LISTED HERE ARE THE SAME POINTS PROTESTANTS MAKE FOR THE RISE OF CATHOLICISM. If what the apostles actually meant by calling Jesus, HS, and Father God was lost, why couldn’t we argue that it never WAS really recovered?
In any case, your hypothetical possibility is EXACTLY what I’m arguing - they knew what they meant by their reference to Jesus as God, and it was NOT a reference to his co-equality, co-authority, etc. What they meant was lost via cultural shift, as more Gentiles flooded in and gained positions of authority, heresy invaded, etc. The place where I differ is that, while YOU may think that the church leadership at least held onto the true understanding, I think that the church leadership played a central role in LOSING the meaning.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
I am with you Pat that just makes me want to go ape s…t on those people. I was telling Tirib this weekend I was all hyped up on Androgel (low T levels) I could rip someone’s arms off if they said anything bad about my Lord and Savior. Not very Christian like I know, but that was how I was feeling. Most of the rage posts you guys are seeing on here stem from the androgel. Still trying to get that under control. Hopefully I will not have to be on it too much longer.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
[/quote]
It does, and that’s exactly the point. The Greek is ambiguous - without the definite article, it’s ambiguous linguistically. If John meant to say, “THE God” unambiguously, he would have said, ho theos. But the context of John rules it out as a genuine interpretive possibility - there is simply no way John thought Jesus was “a” god - but it is a linguistically possible reading because of the lack of a definite article.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
[/quote]
It does, and that’s exactly the point. The Greek is ambiguous - without the definite article, it’s ambiguous linguistically. If John meant to say, “THE God” unambiguously, he would have said, ho theos. But the context of John rules it out as a genuine interpretive possibility - there is simply no way John thought Jesus was “a” god - but it is a linguistically possible reading because of the lack of a definite article.
[/quote]
I thought nv in greek was The? Am I wrong?
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
Why turn the question around rather than answer it?
That was an answer, Pat. You framed the question in a way that makes only one answer appear logical - your’s. So I reframed the question in a way that makes MY position look like the more logical one. The point is that the way you framed the question left out important information about my position; that was intellectually dishonest. You certainly didn’t intend it to be, but it was.
[/quote]
I don’t consider turning the question around an answer. I considered the question pretty strait forward. But no matter.
We will agree to disagree then. Most of the scholarly assessment I have read, Catholic and non-Catholic alike make that same point. In fact it’s not “my” position. It’s just the one I agree with because the unvarnished fact of the matter is that the only to people scripture mentions at the Creation event is God the Father and Jesus. All else is assumptions. It doesn’t matter of those assumptions are done by really old dead people or current scholars, they are still assumptions. Nothing puts a divine counsel there save for the impression of old dead people.
They certainly saw fit to comment on it so they must have recognized the tension. But again, being ‘high’ contextual interpretation doesn’t make it the correct interpretation.
It’s an assumption of course, but while there is an intrinsic immorality to murder, buzzard eating is just gross and unhealthy and the fact that they had to be told not to, leads one to believe it was tried as it’s not defacto immoral. The fact that they had to be told several times not to screw the livestock leads one to believe that happened more then one would like to believe.
Aside from that, the point is we know that they believed things in error that we now know to be error. So why would their scriptural interpretations be the right interpretation, simply because they were interpreting in high context? The contextual advantage does not buy them default correct interpretation.
I see a difference between the circumstances by which interpretation took place and the actual interpretation itself.
Did I not make that exact point and you disagreed with me?
Oh, I do believe it means exactly that. Precisely and exactly that.
No I do not have that idea, at all in anyway. That’s not what I have been saying at any point.
‘through’ doesn’t mean ‘by’. If it were to say that everything were made by Him, it would put the person of Jesus as the creative force. The fact that it says ‘through’ and not ‘by’ makes it far more interesting.
‘If’, he may have been, he may not have been. Seems an over complication of the matter. It says what it says and we’re left to figure out why. It’s clear that John was trying to make perfectly clear who Jesus was, by inserting him in creation itself. But that insertions came with consequences not only on his Gospel, but Genesis.
He didn’t tell us what he interpreted by it, so I really have no idea whether or not he interpreted it wrongly or rightly.
There is no evidence whatsoever of a heavenly counsel being present save for the hearsay of the early Hebrews. Their thoughts on the matter is far from a smoking gun. You have not proven it’s the correct interpretation. You’ve only proven that, that’s what they thought and that’s what you think.
You consistently make the point that what they thought matters, and I agree. I just don’t agree that it’s necessarily the right interpretation.
I am not interested in ‘refuting’ the second temple Jewish explanations, really. Like stated, we have a situation to deal with where there are at least 2 beings involved with creation. They are the only 2 mentioned in the Scriptures. Now it may be Jesus, the Holy Spirit and all of the Heaven Host’s are present and involved but it’s not stated. The fact that early Jewish explanations made some assumptions based on their theological training and high context does resolve fact that it’s not stated or even remotely inferred by the text itself. If there were at least a nugget referring the the Heavenly Hosts, then I could see, but there is nothing there at all. The problem I have with it, is to total absence of any kind of even remote reference. So high context or not, it’s still purely an assumption.
The only beings we know were there based on Scripture is Father and Son.
The point is simply that scripture places Jesus and the Father at creation. Whether or not John intended this to have an impact on Genesis 1:26, the fact is that is does. The Second Temple Jewish interpretation was not ‘case closed’, not to be revisited ever again. Whether he intended to or not, John through a loop in to the creation narrative.
Not sure I want to know. Everything I have read about Isaiah states basically what I over simplified. But definitely don’t want to get into it now. I am not interpreting on my own, nor am I studying a ‘Catholic only’ interpretation.
No it does not. People are not culpable for what they are revealed or not revealed. This has absolutely zero impact on the spiritual stature of the early Hebrews. They were God’s chosen people. If anybody has an advantage spiritually, it’s them.
The problem is, that’s not what I am implying at all. God left gaps in the text? No. I am not implying that on any level. It’s not an implication of First or Second temple Judaism on any level. It’s dealing with the text and what it says and reconciling that and only that.
Okay. It’s a stock feature in a lot of creation stories. The audience would expect that. Okay, but that’s not what this creation story is.
All that and you missed the point of what I was saying totally. The irony was the point.
It doesn’t mean that “us” refers to a Divine Counsel either. Their is no evidence, save for hearsay, on that.
Your back to assuming a whole bunch of things I did not even remotely make reference to. I did not make any sort of connotation of what being made in ‘God’s image’ means at any level. I wasn’t trying to deal with that, I wasn’t getting into that. That’s purely an assumption on your part.
[quote]Pat wrote:
Kingkai wrote:
“Tools” are not the same thing as “raw material.” When I say that a certain method - a tool - can help us better understand the biblical text, I’m not saying that this tool will unlock meaning unknown to ANYONE before. I’m saying that it can help me read a little more like the original audience for whom the texts were written would intuitively read. That’s VERY different from what you have claimed at different points to defend your Trinitarian reading, i.e., that the human author wrote a passage that was meaningless to him and his audience, which God intended to supply the cognitive information (“the raw material”) necessary for understanding later. That’s a hidden meaning, Pat; a meaning intentionally left unrevealed for a thousand years is a hidden meaning, in so far as it was hidden from a people group for their entire history.
And that will get you as far as they got. I did not imply, state, or otherwise infer “hidden meanings”. I resent the shallowness of that accusation. Understanding something differently when you have come in to more knowledge is not the same as ‘looking for hidden meanings’.
You can resent it all you want, but it’s an accurate description of what you’re talking about.
[/quote]
No it’s not. It’s a complete and total misrepresentation of what I am saying. I never stated hidden meanings. I never implied hidden meanings. What I am talking about is having the word ‘opened’ to us. The Word was ‘opened’ a lot in the NT.
I never said it was hidden, period. I am saying what some people interpreted it as, and what it actually means are two different things. You seems to get this idea that if these people were, for some reason, possibly incorrect in their interpretations, then it’s an implication on their spirituality, their personage or their relations with the Almighty. It’s not an indictment, it’s just an interpretation.
I am not trying to make ‘Catholic’ points, so there is no reason to bring it up. Second, that’s not what I was saying, yet you persist in making clarifying my points even if that is not my position. I am merely saying that in the early church there was a lot of ‘noise’ mixed in with the central message. The dogmatic proclamations are a way of separating the noise, from the core meaning. It’s a clarification so that one cannot come in and say “The church teaches X,Y,and Z”. It’s not about loss of meaning, or the intelligence or stupidity of early Christians, it’s an invasion of the Christian message by those who were in it for personal gain.
[quote]
In any case, your hypothetical possibility is EXACTLY what I’m arguing - they knew what they meant by their reference to Jesus as God, and it was NOT a reference to his co-equality, co-authority, etc. What they meant was lost via cultural shift, as more Gentiles flooded in and gained positions of authority, heresy invaded, etc. The place where I differ is that, while YOU may think that the church leadership at least held onto the true understanding, I think that the church leadership played a central role in LOSING the meaning.[/quote]
Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one substance, one being is losing the meaning?
is anyone actually stupid enough to believe the nonsense in the bible?
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
I am with you Pat that just makes me want to go ape s…t on those people. I was telling Tirib this weekend I was all hyped up on Androgel (low T levels) I could rip someone’s arms off if they said anything bad about my Lord and Savior. Not very Christian like I know, but that was how I was feeling. Most of the rage posts you guys are seeing on here stem from the androgel. Still trying to get that under control. Hopefully I will not have to be on it too much longer.
[/quote]
Hate to burst your bubble, but unless there is a temporary condition contributing to low T, it’s a life long commitment. Unless you are doing a cycle with it. It’s just a matter then of how your taper.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
I am with you Pat that just makes me want to go ape s…t on those people. I was telling Tirib this weekend I was all hyped up on Androgel (low T levels) I could rip someone’s arms off if they said anything bad about my Lord and Savior. Not very Christian like I know, but that was how I was feeling. Most of the rage posts you guys are seeing on here stem from the androgel. Still trying to get that under control. Hopefully I will not have to be on it too much longer.
[/quote]
Hate to burst your bubble, but unless there is a temporary condition contributing to low T, it’s a life long commitment. Unless you are doing a cycle with it. It’s just a matter then of how your taper.[/quote]
Doc is hoping the T will come up with me losing fat so hopefully it is a temporary condition.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
I am with you Pat that just makes me want to go ape s…t on those people. I was telling Tirib this weekend I was all hyped up on Androgel (low T levels) I could rip someone’s arms off if they said anything bad about my Lord and Savior. Not very Christian like I know, but that was how I was feeling. Most of the rage posts you guys are seeing on here stem from the androgel. Still trying to get that under control. Hopefully I will not have to be on it too much longer.
[/quote]
Hate to burst your bubble, but unless there is a temporary condition contributing to low T, it’s a life long commitment. Unless you are doing a cycle with it. It’s just a matter then of how your taper.[/quote]
Doc is hoping the T will come up with me losing fat so hopefully it is a temporary condition.[/quote]
It will do that. I wished PM’s worked, I’d like to take this conversation off line. I am going to PM you, let me know if you get it.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
While I’m happy for you Christopher, I know a couple Jehovah’s Witnesses who could stomp n chew on just about anybody who would likely be on that show. Knowing tons of scripture is not the same as knowing scripture. I’m just being honest man.[/quote]
Perhaps, but NWT errors my paint them into a corner if they got called on it… '…and the word was a god." Ugh.
I am not saying any translation is perfect, but there are translations errors, and there is deliberate misrepresentation. [/quote]
It is a legitimate interpretation linguistically. There’s nothing wrong with it at the linguistic level; it simply doesn’t fit contextually.[/quote]
Doesn’t the greek text have nv theos in that verse, which means the word was THE GOD? If so linguistically the JW have no basis of the word was a god. I agree with you contextually though. I had a run in with JWs a couple of years ago on this site. That is what I remember looking up in my personal greek text not an online version.
I am with you Pat that just makes me want to go ape s…t on those people. I was telling Tirib this weekend I was all hyped up on Androgel (low T levels) I could rip someone’s arms off if they said anything bad about my Lord and Savior. Not very Christian like I know, but that was how I was feeling. Most of the rage posts you guys are seeing on here stem from the androgel. Still trying to get that under control. Hopefully I will not have to be on it too much longer.
[/quote]
Hate to burst your bubble, but unless there is a temporary condition contributing to low T, it’s a life long commitment. Unless you are doing a cycle with it. It’s just a matter then of how your taper.[/quote]
Doc is hoping the T will come up with me losing fat so hopefully it is a temporary condition.[/quote]
It will do that. I wished PM’s worked, I’d like to take this conversation off line. I am going to PM you, let me know if you get it.[/quote]
email tirib. He has my personal email address.
[quote]cryogen wrote:
is anyone actually stupid enough to believe the nonsense in the bible?[/quote]
is anyone actually stupid enough to not believe what the Bible says?
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:<<< It does, and that’s exactly the point. The Greek is ambiguous - without the definite article, it’s ambiguous linguistically. If John meant to say, “THE God” unambiguously, he would have said, ho theos. But the context of John rules it out as a genuine interpretive possibility - there is simply no way John thought Jesus was “a” god - but it is a linguistically possible reading because of the lack of a definite article.
[/quote] There’s my answer on your view of the Granville Sharp rule? I know it’s not regarded as solidly as it once was. I am not qualified to be definitive for sure.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:email tirib. He has my personal email address.[/quote] I had no idea he was going to say this Pat, but I really wish you would.
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]cryogen wrote:
is anyone actually stupid enough to believe the nonsense in the bible?[/quote]
is anyone actually stupid enough to not believe what the Bible says? [/quote]
Couple billion people are that stupid and either believe in a different religion or don’t believe in something or are agnostic like myself.
So the answer is yes, I guess us idiots are out there.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:email tirib. He has my personal email address.[/quote] I had no idea he was going to say this Pat, but I really wish you would.
[/quote]
Okay, I know. KingKai has my email address tell him to give it to you, he has my blessing. And then send me dmaddox’s…
Look, I am really, really, really protective of my personal stuff. So I am asking that no matter how you feel about me or if I make you really mad, that you do not violate my personal confidences.
Actually, KK has my work email, I am going to send him my personal one and we can all correspond that way. I need to keep this stuff off of work emails.
EDIT: I send KK an email to provide you my personal email address. Then you can give me dmaddox’s and we will all be one big happy family.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:email tirib. He has my personal email address.[/quote] I had no idea he was going to say this Pat, but I really wish you would.
[/quote]
Okay, I know. KingKai has my email address tell him to give it to you, he has my blessing. And then send me dmaddox’s…
Look, I am really, really, really protective of my personal stuff. So I am asking that no matter how you feel about me or if I make you really mad, that you do not violate my personal confidences.
Actually, KK has my work email, I am going to send him my personal one and we can all correspond that way. I need to keep this stuff off of work emails.[/quote]
There is nothing wrong with your not wanting people to have your information. I tell you in front of all these witnesses that I would submit to death by skinning alive before divulging one jot or tittle of your information to anybody OR using it in anyway of which you would not approve. You have my word before the Lord. That said, I’m walkin out the door so it’ll have to be later.
So did I. School has him all tied up. It may take a day or so to hear from him. I’m very blessed by this Pat.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:email tirib. He has my personal email address.[/quote] I had no idea he was going to say this Pat, but I really wish you would.
[/quote]
Okay, I know. KingKai has my email address tell him to give it to you, he has my blessing. And then send me dmaddox’s…
Look, I am really, really, really protective of my personal stuff. So I am asking that no matter how you feel about me or if I make you really mad, that you do not violate my personal confidences.
Actually, KK has my work email, I am going to send him my personal one and we can all correspond that way. I need to keep this stuff off of work emails.[/quote]
There is nothing wrong with your not wanting people to have your information. I tell you in front of all these witnesses that I would submit to death by skinning alive before divulging one jot or tittle of your information to anybody OR using it in anyway of which you would not approve. You have my word before the Lord. That said, I’m walkin out the door so it’ll have to be later. [/quote]
Good enough for me, and may it to me and more also if I violate your confidences in anyway.