11 Sep 06
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Originally posted by xpoferensI think that comes under the heading of “a manner of speaking”—just as we still today say that the sun “rises in the east and sets in the west,” though we know the daily movement is not of the sun but of the earth. When I say to someone, “That sunset is beautiful,” I am seldom accused of making that statement based on a false premise.
Please allow me to quote from an article.
"When the Pharisees sought to quibble with Christ regarding God’s original law of divorce/remarriage, Jesus pointed out that under the Mosaic regime a laxness was tolerated due to the “hardness” of their hearts, but that this was not the sacred ideal—which would be restored under his regime (Mark 10:2-5; cf. Mat tp://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/do_the_ages_of_the_earth_and_mankind_really_matter
I doubt if Jesus was trying for scientific correctness here, but speaking in the euphemisms of the time and culture, in order to get his real message—that of basileia tou theou—across.
NRS Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'
The Greek here rendered as “from beginning of creation” is apo arche ktiseos. It can equally be rendered “from [the] first, [the] foundation.”
EDIT: Both arche and ktiseos are nouns; there are no definite article attached. Sometimes the definite article is implied in the Greek; whether or not is is here, I don't know.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by xpoferensI am still waiting for the words to interpret for crying out loud. Here is the irony. There are those in the spiritual forums who recite verse after verse after verse and draw conclusions that have absolutely nothing to do with the passage quoted.
Well, please tell me how you interpter Jesus words.
It seems that for some of you, a especific sentence is always required in order for you to accept something.
I wonder if you do the same in your daily life...
Do you ever use inferences?
Inference is the act or process of deriving a conclusion based solely on what one already knows.
Now you are getting frustrated with me and are going at my "daily life."
I don't need a lecture or a dictionary about "inferences." All I know is that when I draw an "inference" I am diluting the word of God, but when others draw the most outrageous illogical ideas, it seems to be the Gospel. Go figure.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by vistesdHi vistesd,
I think that comes under the heading of “a manner of speaking”—just as we still today say that the sun “rises in the east and sets in the west,” though we know the daily movement is not of the sun but of the earth. When I say to someone, “That sunset is beautiful,” I am seldom accused of making that statement based on a false premise.
I doubt if Jesus ...[text shortened]... is apo arche ktiseos. It can equally be rendered “from [the] first, [the] foundation.”
Arguing that the "four corners of the earth" (as stated before) might be a manner of speaking just as we still today say that the sun “rises in the east and sets in the west,”, it one thing.
But, what is metaphorical about "from beginning of creation"?
I think some people go to far, trying to reconcile "supposed" science with the Genesis record.
Regards
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by kirksey957Yeah right, you haven't told me yet what you think about Jesus' words.
I am still waiting for the words to interpret for crying out loud. Here is the irony. There are those in the spiritual forums who recite verse after verse after verse and draw conclusions that have absolutely nothing to do with the passage quoted.
Now you are getting frustrated with me and are going at my "daily life."
I don't need a lecture or a di ...[text shortened]... n others draw the most outrageous illogical ideas, it seems to be the Gospel. Go figure.
"outrageous illogical ideas"? Well, before Darwin, most of "Christianity" believed in these "outrageous illogical ideas".
If the Mosaic narrative is profuse with symbolism, what do “earth,” “seas,” “grass,” “trees,” “stars,” “birds,” “fish,” “cattle,” and “man,” represent?
Frustrated? You must be joking.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by xpoferensHell xpo.
Hi vistesd,
Arguing that the "four corners of the earth" (as stated before) might be a manner of speaking just as we still today say that the sun “rises in the east and sets in the west,”, it one thing.
But, what is metaphorical about "from beginning of creation"?
I think some people go to far, trying to reconcile "supposed" science with the Genesis record.
Regards
I don’t take the Genesis “record” as a—well, as a record. I think that is an error. I take it as a very rich story attempting to point to realities beyond itself (and our everyday perceptions), and which has a “moral” point.
Unless you want to do some latter-day Protestant biblical literalism here, then yes, it is either metaphorical (or perhaps more properly allegorical), or represents the worldview of the writers at the time. I think the notion of trying to apply the Genesis account as “natural science” or natural history was entirely foreign to the writers. And I think it is a mistake today to treat the text that way.
I suppose my general emphasis would be directly the opposite of yours: you concede that is metaphor in the texts—I would concede there is some history there! (whether accurately reported or not, I cannot say). 🙂
As for the "beginning of creation," I already mentioned that I take it "as a manner of speaking," and also offered an alternative--completely accurate!--translation of the Markan verse; just to "take the pressure off" the notion that there is only one way to read it.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by xpoferensI just gave you your first rec. Never forget where it came from. 🙂
Yeah right, you haven't told me yet what you think about Jesus' words.
"outrageous illogical ideas"? Well, before Darwin, most of "Christianity" believed in these "outrageous illogical ideas".
If the Mosaic narrative is profuse with symbolism, what do “earth,” “seas,” “grass,” “trees,” “stars,” “birds,” “fish,” “cattle,” and “man,” represent?
Frustrated? You must be joking.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by vistesdHi vistesd,
Hell xpo.
I don’t take the Genesis “record” as a—well, as a record. I think that is an error. I take it as a very rich story attempting to point to realities beyond itself (and our everyday perceptions), and which has a “moral” point.
Unless you want to do some latter-day Protestant biblical literalism here, then yes, it is either metaphorical (or per ...[text shortened]... verse; just to "take the pressure off" the notion that there is only one way to read it.
I do not think this is about "latter-day Protestant biblical literalism".
Judaism and Christianity in general, regarded the Genesis record as fact; after darwinism and other skeptical ideas apeared, things changed.
For you, the whole book of Genesis is not real, or just part of it?
What about Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by xpoferensI don’t want to get too far afield here—or answer for Kirk—but, yes, the Hebrew is highly rich in symbolism, metaphor, puns. Almost all Hebrew words have layers and layers of meaning. I won’t go into detail (I have before), but the following should give you a flavor. [It also allows me to shamelessly post my “Elisha and the Bears” midrash yet again.]
Yeah right, you haven't told me yet what you think about Jesus' words.
"outrageous illogical ideas"? Well, before Darwin, most of "Christianity" believed in these "outrageous illogical ideas".
If the Mosaic narrative is profuse with symbolism, what do “earth,” “seas,” “grass,” “trees,” “stars,” “birds,” “fish,” “cattle,” and “man,” represent?
Frustrated? You must be joking.
This also goes to your claim about Jews (and the early Christians for that matter) regarding the Genesis record as "fact." I can search out some sources on early Christian writers if you want--but the simple answer is that, perhaps with rare exception, they just didn't.
Rabbinical Judaism has recognized the fact that Biblical Hebrew not only allows, but indeed insists upon, multiple interpretations. For example—
“The scroll of the Torah is written without vowels, so you can read it variously. Without vowels, the consonants bear many meanings and splinter into sparks. That is why the Torah scroll must not be vowelized, for the meaning of each word accords with its vowels. Once vowelized, a word means just one thing. Without vowels, you can understand it in countless, wondrous ways.”
—Bahya ben Asher (13th-14th centuries), quoted in Daniel Matt, The Essential Kabbalah.
Also: “The Torah scroll may not be vowelized—so that we can interpret every single word according to every possible reading.” (Jacob ben Sheshet, quoted by Matt in a footnote to the above quote.)
Of course, the Masoretes, by deciding on vowel-pointing, decided the standard or conventional interpretation for the “plain reading” ( ha p’shat). This vowel-pointing shows up in the printed texts, but the Torah scrolls remain unpointed.
There are lots of examples in Midrash and Talmud and Kabbalistic texts such as ha Zohar that go something like: “Do not read [word with standard vowel-pointing]. Rather, read [alternative word with changed vowel-pointing].”
According to Marc-Alain Ouaknin (rabbi and Talmudic scholar), in The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud— “The Book [i.e., Torah] of the beginning is illegible and meaningless. Before the book can be read, it must be composed; the reader is actually a creator. Reading becomes an activity, a production. And so an infinity of books are constantly present in the Book [Torah]. There is not one story but many stories.
“The first function of the reader is to introduce breaks between the letters to form words; between certain words to produce sentences….”
Ouaknin goes on: “To avoid the trap of idolatry—the illusion of possessing the meaning—Hebrew tradition has introduced the idea of levels of meaning.”
_____________________________
Elisha and the Bears
Second Kings: 23 He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!"
24 When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of YHVH. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
In Hebrew, each letter also stands for a number (there are no numerals in Biblical Hebrew). Now, the word for bear is spelled dalet bet (DB, pronounced dob. Dalet is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, bet is the second letter: 4 and 2.
The words used to identify the number of children in the story are arba’im v’sheni. arba’im is the plural form of arba, which means four-fold, quadruple, a four-count; hence, arba’im was used for the word “forty.” v’sheni means “and a double.”
A Jewish reader schooled in Hebrew would recognize the complex pun on the word dob, meaning bear, but also the numerals 4 and 2, and arba’im v’sheni, 42. Traditional midrashic exegesis gets a lot of mileage out of such word-plays.
Since Hebrew is based on a consonantal root system (usually three, but in this case two), words with the same consonantal roots can be related, regardless of the order of the letters. Now, the word spelled bet-dalet (BD, the same letters as dob, but reversed), also means idle talk or prattle. It does not seem beyond the bounds of midrashic exegesis to propose that this verse means, symbolically, that “idle chatter ate them up,” the idle chatter being their poking fun at Elisha.
Again, the Jewish tradition is not to look for “the one right meaning,” but all the possible meanings, looking for symbolism, metaphor, allegories, word-plays, even puns. This example may seem fanciful—and perhaps brings a “fairy-tale” like quality to the story—but….
11 Sep 06
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As an extension of my comments above, I offer the following quotes from Jaroslav Pelikan, probably the premier historian of church doctrine:
“It is not clear how early the term ‘scripture’, as applied to one or more of the books now collected in the New Testament, began to carry some of the connotation of authority it had when applied to the Old testament.” (p. 114)
“There is no early Christian who simultaneously acknowledged the doctrinal authority of the Old testament and interpreted it literally.” (p. 81)
—Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine; Volume 1.
This gives a pretty good look at the development of the Christian canon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon
I’m trying to search some more on the history of biblical literalism, but it appears not to have been much of a phenomenon before the 17th century.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by vistesdThanks for all the information.
As an extension of my comments above, I offer the following quotes from Jaroslav Pelikan, probably the premier historian of church doctrine:
“It is not clear how early the term ‘scripture’, as applied to one or more of the books now collected in the New Testament, began to carry some of the connotation of authority it had when applied to the Old testament ...[text shortened]... blical literalism, but it appears not to have been much of a phenomenon before the 17th century.
I'm studying the subject...
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by vistesdHi vistesd,
I don’t want to get too far afield here—or answer for Kirk—but, yes, the Hebrew is highly rich in symbolism, metaphor, puns. Almost all Hebrew words have layers and layers of meaning. I won’t go into detail (I have before), but the following should give you a flavor. [It also allows me to shamelessly post my “Elisha and the Bears” midrash yet again.]
T ...[text shortened]... example may seem fanciful—and perhaps brings a “fairy-tale” like quality to the story—but….
I've found some information in the following site. Would you be so kind to read it?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i2/tradition.asp
Do they have a creationist young-earth agenda?
Well, if we have an opinion or if we are sure about something, then, if the subject is relevant, we should try to pass the message. That's what they're trying to do.
In that sense, we all have agendas, don't we?
Regards
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by xpoferensOne very readable book that offers unique conversational ideas about Genesis from Christian, Muslim, Jewish and even artistic resources is "Genesis" by Bill Moyers. It, like Stephen , will give you some valuable insights from the language, but also some interesting insight from a purely personal point of view.
Thanks for all the information.
I'm studying the subject...
If you don't like to read, I believe it is also available in video or dvd format. If you look at the video, I would be interested in your sense of the "conversation" comparing it to the debate in this forum.
11 Sep 06
Originally posted by kirksey957Thanks kirksey957,
One very readable book that offers unique conversational ideas about Genesis from Christian, Muslim, Jewish and even artistic resources is "Genesis" by Bill Moyers. It, like Stephen , will give you some valuable insights from the language, but also some interesting insight from a purely personal point of view.
If you don't like to read, I believe i ...[text shortened]... be interested in your sense of the "conversation" comparing it to the debate in this forum.
I'll try to read about it in the net.
Sorry if I've offended you in any way.