Replies

[ The words "αγια" and "αγοις" both existed in ancient and koine Greek and mean exactly what they say. They aren't made up words not found before the NT or the Septuagint. What does the Hebrew word for "Holy " imply which is different from the Greek? ]

The Greeks, before some became christians, had no idea of anything HOLY, none.. Meaning they no idea of what and who the real God was, wanted for mankind, or demanded that they perform.. The Hebrew God was God.. and allowed no person to decide for himself what holy was.. How to "get" holy or make something holy, or to even to approach holiness..

This Hebrew God TOLD YOU what was and wasn't holy..
It was not decided by some group of priests.. what was holy..

Holiness is NOT setting something aside for specific use.. like the Greek word..
The Hebrew God did not allow you to decide how to worship him.. like the Greek gods..
Which were not Gods at all.. merely mental constructs..

The Jews eventually degraded to use the Talmud..
Which is composed of the Mishnah and the Gemarah(sp?)..
The mishanah was the opinions of certain rabbis as to what the Torah really meant..
The gemarah(sp?) was another set of Rabbis opinions on what the mishnah Rabbis really meant..

As it is to this day.. pretty much what many many Roman Catholics do with what they call church fathers opinions.. You know following "tradition".. same thing basically..

Holiness is NOT setting something aside for specific use.. like the Greek word..

Woah! I see where you are coming from conceptually, but I think that both "religions" had an idea of "Setting stuff aside for 'religious' type use". 'm not disputing that worshipping the Lord of Hosts isn't essentially different from worhsip this particular one of a multitude of "gods". But "consecrated" is an popular and easily accessible notion, as in: MOM! You WASHED them! And they were my lucky socks! Or," You will be MY people, a people set apart, and I will be your God."

I would have said that everyone has SOME idea of what holiness is, just enough to have a clue when those Christian weirdos come into th community and start talking about it.

And the more the Christian weirdos talk, the more some of them realize that their old idea was WAY off base. But there was some resonance. It's not like they came in and said, "Fgjzcy is ghlppny and requires azqwxfdtness". It was 'Jesus is the Son fo God and He requires Faith. Now lets talk about what we mean by "Jesus", "God", and "Faith", and in a couple of hunderd years we'll get around to talking about "Son".'

"The Greeks, before some became christians, had no idea of anything HOLY, none.. Meaning they no idea of what and who the real God was, wanted for mankind, or demanded that they perform..."

Oh that's just nonsense, HP. Greek mythology and philosophy are full of "sporoi" of the One God. So is Hinduism, Buddhism and ancient Egyptian religion.