Posted on 09/19/2005 9:13:46 AM PDT by xzins
Got one that says "almah" clearly means "virgin"?
You're still saying he lied. Nothing such as he described has ever happened. Like Roman Catholics, Mormons, and all the others who can't just come out and say they don't believe the Bible, you've simply found a way to quiet your conscience.
No such Temple as Ezekiel spent eight chapters describing has ever existed. You can waste the time of those who care to let it be wasted all you want with your rationalizations, and after all has been chanted and repeated, the fact will still remain: Ezekiel could not have expressed it one syllable more clearly had God been moving him to describe a literal reality. Because he was.
So extraneous consideration has just moved you not to believe him.
Dan
Not interested in doing your homework for you, sonny, absent a hint that plain Biblical data neccessarily means anything to you anymore, if it ever did.
You're in a rationality-destroying system that tells you that "Jerusalem" *really* means "the Christian church, composed of Jew and Gentile, and with no specific geographical referent" -- and you want me to debate Hebrew with you, which you don't even know?
Please. I have a life.
Dan
Last time I heard this complaint, it was from a guy who objected to my correcting the King James Version. He didn't like how I eviscerated his sermon text from under him when I pointed out that gnwsiV didn't mean "science" in the sense he used it. He accused me of putting myself above the Bible, since we couldn't possibly understand Greek anymore. (Which is baloney - I do understand Greek).
His complaint had no more basis in fact than yours does. I subscribe to "plain Biblical data" as much as anyone on this board; I just refuse to be bound by traditional translation decisions. If evidence points towards a better rendering, I will take it.
Now, the Reformed faith is anything but a "rationality-destroying system." Let's see. Reformed theology has given us Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Francis Schaeffer, Strong, Hodge, Warfield, Machen, and a whole host of others. Dispensationalism has given us Scofield, Lindsay, and LaHaye. I'll take Reformed theology.
As regards the Hebrew, I am asking you to point me to a reputable source that tells me that almah is unambiguous. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament and Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains both say that almah is ambiguous. So do the NET Bible translator's notes. I am in good company here.
Not hyper-literally. Who says that Ezekiel's vision will be fulfilled literally? Ezekiel doesn't claim this; nor does the rest of the Canon.
Ah, so it was elitism that moved you away from the text.
It is a temptation. Sad that you yielded.
One last time, you're in a rationality-destroying system that tells you that "Jerusalem" *really* means "the Christian church, composed of Jew and Gentile, and with no specific geographical referent" -- and you want me to debate Hebrew with you, which you don't even know?
You've sucked enough of my time, to no point. Buh-bye.
Dan
Don't blame us. It was your buddy xzins that sucked you in.
Sure, I'd be glad to. Which thread are you referring to?
No, but I would like a cite to authority. Maybe it's just the law student in me, but I don't trust anyone's say-so unless they can cite to someone bigger than themselves.
You've sucked enough of my time, to no point. Buh-bye.
Have you considered that there might be a possibility why you are used to be a teacher?
Ah, so it was elitism that moved you away from the text.
Nothing is further from the truth. There are many here who can tell you that I am always looking to get a better understanding of the truth, and am willing to let the chips fall where they may. If that means that I lose convenient proof-texts, that's okay with me. As for me, I am secure enough in my faith to realize that Matthew narrowed Isaiah; I don't need to try to contort Isaiah back to fit Matthew's interpretation.
"Elitism" is the furthest thing from my mind when I use Greek and Hebrew helps to try to figure things out. "Elitism" is not in my mind when I formulate my beliefs. Truth is all that matters, and not even doctrinal orthodoxy permits me to make the text say what it doesn't say.
And still dispensational. What a waste. I'd get my money back for all those classes.
<< Reformed theology has given us Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Francis Schaeffer, Strong, Hodge, Warfield, Machen, and a whole host of others. Dispensationalism has given us Scofield, Lindsay, and LaHaye. I'll take Reformed theology >>
Elitism.
After all, truth is settled by the vote of the aristocracy, right?
In your world.
"Many of the Church Fathers since John have written of the mystery of the identity of the Anti-Christ.
If John had just known it, why hadn't he revealed it to them?"
He did. That's what "666" meant. 666 the name of the beast in code. Numbers were used instead of letters sometimes, and there was a table of the value of each letter commonly used. Ancient grafitti and other writings from this time period still exist which show this technique used.
The name of Nero in Hebrew was "Nrwn Qsr" (pronounced Neron Kaiser). If you take each letter of this Hebrew name and add its equivalent number together, you come up with the number 666. As with hash tables for cryptography, it's impossible to decode this from the result, so it makes a very safe way to give an indication of someone's identify without giving their name. The Hebrew readers of John's writings would have made the association quite easily. And the chances of this number coincidentally being the same as the result for "Nrwn Qsr" are incredibly small.
Many Bibles have in the footnote that some manuscripts use "616" instead of "666". 616 would have been code for Nero's name in Latin, which many of the readers would have been more familiar with.
BTW, other writings from that period refer to Nero's nickname as "The Beast".
" The Top Ten Ways to Tell if You Might Be a DISPENSATIONALIST"
Now that's funny!
Post #123 in this thread.
John was not speaking. Jesus was speaking and he certainly was not speaking of their spiritual wealth. They were materially rich and spiritually bankrupt. If you can't see that from the words themselves, I can't help you with the interpretation.
Can you explain the spritual or allegorical meaning of the physical descriptions of the Ezekiel Temple? I doubt it, unless you find some occultic meaning in the words. Ezekiel is describing a literal temple with physical dimensions. Unless there is some occultic meaning to the description that is hidden from all but the initiated, then I think the proper hermenutic is to assume that he was prophesying of the Temple which will be built in the future.
Do you have some occultic knowledge of what the various alleged "symbols" described in Ezekiel 40-48 mean?
Personally I try to avoid occultic interpretations of passages that can be interpreted literally. While there may be secondary and tertiary symbolic meanings, if the scripture is subject to literal interpretation, then we need to realize that TRUTH demands that the literal interpretation take precedence.
The prophesies regarding Christ's first coming were not fulfilled allegorically or spsiritually or occultically, but literally. I suspect that any prophesy of Christ's second coming that can be reasonably interpreted literally will be fulfilled literally.
Deuteronomy warns us against prophets whose prophesies do not come to pass (literally). By your interpretation if we judge Ezekiel by the standard of Deuteronomy, we have to conclude that he was a false prophet. Or maybe we can just allegorize the warnings in Deuteronomy.
Is there a single verse of scripture that you are not willing to allegorize if it conflicts with your eschatology?
I never did understand how one could say that animal sacrifices would be re-instituted when animal sacrifices, according to the book of Hebrews, clearly state that they never DID remove sin, so what would be the point? I suppose it is some twisted way of trying to separate God's Church from the People of God of the Old Testament.
Anyway, take care.
Regards
You are presuming that all of those "prophecies" refer to the same individual. It is clear that the initial readers of Isaiah and so forth did NOT see the suffering servant as refering to the kingly Messiah that was to come, much less that He was/would be GOD.
WE all look at Scriptures through our own paradigms and sets of beliefs. This is clear by the very fact that we have differences of opinion regarding so many sections of Scripture. If Scripture was so clear, why the disparity in opinions?
It is clear from reading the very first Christians writings, such as Ignatius, Clement, Justin, and Irenaeus, that they read into the Old Testament that the Christ had risen and was predicted from the very beginning of salvation history. Even the Gospel writers write this way. Of course, I agree with that - we base our beliefs on the historical facts of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. We understand that, as a result, everything in the OT pointed to Him, at least metaphorically, if not literally. We only do this because of our own beliefs, not because it is crystal clear from the Scriptures ALONE.
Regards
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