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To: onedoug
I believe Jesus to have been a fine rabbi, though not divine for myriad reasons, one of which is that the Devil undermines monotheism. There cannot be One God for goodness and another for Evil. Whatever one wants to call it does not change that polytheistic effect.

I see. But the Devil isn't a God, nor even a god, but rather a [self-]corrupted spiritual being.

If someone could point to one example of this so-called Devil, or Evil being at large in Creation before Man came on the scene, I’d be all ears and eyes. But unless some similar concept has been experienced by intelligent beings elsewhere in the cosmos...I’d yet be inclined to think it invented too, thus to pass off their own malfeasence on some agent other than themselves.

Is 14:12-14
How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star {Satan}, son of the dawn.
You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.'
'I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'
As you can see, his was the sin of pride, saying I will make myself like God.
(This leads to an interesting difference: humans are like God, "made in his image" and in Christianity the goal is to be like Jesus, who is God.)

Job 38:1-7
And Jehovah answereth Job out of the whirlwind, and saith: --
Who [is] this -- darkening counsel, By words without knowledge?
Gird, I pray thee, as a man, thy loins, And I ask thee, and cause thou Me to know.
Where wast thou when I founded earth? Declare, if thou hast known understanding.
Who placed its measures -- if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched out upon it a line?
On what have its sockets been sunk? Or who hath cast its corner-stone?
In the singing together of stars of morning, And all sons of God shout for joy,
As you can see, God is talking with Job, describing the creation of the world, there is the "sons of God" shouting with joy, but this is happening before Adam, so there couldn't be 'sons' in the plural sense. {Also, note the genealogy of Jesus in one of the Gospels refers to Adam as son of God.}

So there's some period of time between the creation of the universe and the fall of Satan. ('Fall' not being a literal/geographical, but more like the phrase "fall from grace.") Do I know exactly when? No.

15 posted on 11/04/2012 1:29:10 PM PST by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: OneWingedShark

Is. 14:12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star {Satan}, son of the dawn...

Rev. 22:16 I Jesus have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.


16 posted on 11/04/2012 2:14:05 PM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: OneWingedShark

In the predominance of Jewish literature, this poem (Is 14) is interpreted as referring to the death of an Assyrian king, probably Sargon II who was slain in battle 705 BC, and was layer reinterpreted as predicting the death of a Babylonian king.

Verse 9 makes reference to Sheol and his arrival there. Verse 11 of my “Jewish Study Bible” reads,

“Worms are to be your bed,
Maggots your blanket.”

and are close enough to the King James Version to suggest an amalgam of Sheol as a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem is being suggested. There are several other such verses which tend to reinforce this view.

“O Shining One, Son of the dawn...” is also seen in rabbinic literature as the planet Venus, and is thought related to Isaiah’s knowlege of Greek and Cannanite mythology where an insolent young king is thrown down to earth by a higher deity.

The Book Of Job exibits at least four compostional styles, and likely as many different authors from the mid 6th to 4th centuries BC. It is also generally considered in the Talmud to be a work of fiction.

And again, it is the human mind and nothing else that this Devil affects. While God appears to have been quite active in the universe before the appearance of mankind, where is this thing elsewhere?


19 posted on 11/04/2012 7:48:34 PM PST by onedoug
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