The Neverending Story (The New Christian Chronicles)

Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church ^ | 3/24/01 | AP

[malakhi]

The Neverending Story
An ongoing debate on Scripture, Tradition, History and Interpretation.

Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams

Thread 162
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[malakhi]

Is Solomon a Bnai Elohim?

Actually, the name used for God in this passage is YHWH. And the word used for son is leven--which is the same word used, for example, in Genesis 24:44 to refer to Isaac as the son of Abraham.

[american colleen]

Don't we all wish we knew then what we know now? There seemed to be no sense in learning a dead language (or even a live one in my mind) when you were in HS.

"Latin is a dead language; as dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, and now it's killing me".

[malakhi]

angelo: Bad translation. He answered and said: 'Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.'

DouglasKC: Even that translation raises a question...an angel is the son of what gods?

Who is speaking here? Nebuchadnezzar. A pagan king who believed in many gods. He is describing what he thinks he sees. Undoubtedly to him, the appearance of an angel would look "like a son of the gods".

Context, context, context.

[malakhi]

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? …” (Job 38:4).

Good point, BigMack. You will note that YHWH did not mention here that He created all things through the Son, as John 1:3 asserts.

[ksen]

What would lead you to believe that God could not protect oral traditions, but was only able to preserve written traditions?

God could, and is able to do anything He wants. Have I written anything to make think that I believe otherwise?

As far as your point is concerned, God only promised to protect His word, the Bible. Do you think that the oral Traditions handed down by the Popes and Magisterium are just as much God's word as His Bible is?

-ksen

[RobbyS]

"The Goose", which is still a Canadian base, I think, used to be a SAC base, when they kept tankers. My wife was a DoDDS teacher. Yes, great fishing, but the roads were so few that one had to rent a plane to fly in. Friend of mind caught 32 trout in one hour on the trip we took to a fishing camp.

[Proud2BAmerican]

OK. So likewise, if a "homosexual" addresses the "spiritual problem" does he cease to be a homosexual? Does an alcoholic ever cease being an alcoholic, or does he just become a "reformed" alcoholic?

NOpe - it's only a backward looking proposition. Once the person dies (well, actually on the deathbed, where you can monitor to make sure the person doesn't do a last-second relapse of their habitual sin) can you, with any certainty, say that he was delivered of his sin. (Hmm, but what about that last fleeting moment of consciousness, where a lustful thought coudl be entertained? Well dangit, I guess you just can never tell if someone has or has not been delivered of their sin.)

[RobbyS]

Maybe if we call the Holy Tradition, "The Way," that will be useful.

[malakhi]

They still stone Him today, for exactly the same reason: "God CANNOT make Himself into the form af a man - flesh."

False, and offensive. Just because Jews do not accept Jesus as God does not mean that we "still stone him today". Frankly, outside of these sorts of discussions, which most Jews do not partake in (probably because others will accuse them of killing God), Jesus is just a footnote in Judaism. He is hardly a central part of Jewish faith, even in a negative sense.

There are numerous reasons that Jews do not believe that God did not become man. The doctrine of the incarnation is fraught with theological difficulties. But beyond the notion of the infinite becoming finite, there are scriptural reasons we do not believe this. In the Hebrew scriptures, the messiah is a man, not divine. He will restore Israel and usher in the last days, not save us from our sins. If someone told you that Jesus would return on seven different occasions, instead of just once more in the second coming, would you believe them? Why not? Because this is contrary to your scripture. Likewise, we do not believe that God became man because this is not prophecied in scripture.

Job and his friends had some pretty well entrenched ideas about what GOD could or could not do, likewise.

Likewise, you seem to have some pretty well entrenched ideas about what God has done. Jews do well to listen to the commandments of YHWH rather than to those who tell them to follow a different path.

If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder,
and the sign or wonder which he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, `Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, `and let us serve them,'
you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams; for YHWH your God is testing you, to know whether you love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
You shall walk after YHWH your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and cleave to Him. (Deuteronomy 13:1-4)

[malakhi]

and if one wants to read that "bar elahh" as Christ then he also saved those three...

I shake my head in wonderment. You are reading into the passage what you want to see. Verse 28 clearly states that it was an angel. Yet you insist on making it about Jesus.

[malakhi]

Ah, but even in Hebrew, one of the words for God is plural, is it not? Elohim?

No, that is not correct. Its ending is superficially plural, but the word itself is singular. You are familiar, I presume, with subject-verb agreement in grammar? 'Elohim' always is accompanied by a singular verb form, not plural. Also, consider the case of Exodus 7:1, where God says that Moses will be a god to pharaoh. The word God uses about Moses is 'Elohim'. And yet we don't believe that there were a multiplicity of Moses's. Finally, there are other words in Hebrew that are similar: chaim means 'life', not 'lives'.

[trad_anglican]

As far as your point is concerned, God only promised to protect His word, the Bible.

Didn't Jesus say that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church? I think that is protection. I don't agree with others who've said it means protect from any error at any time, but I think it means protect it nonetheless.

[ksen]

You have mail.

-ksen

[malakhi]

Ha Shem refers to God, the Divine Being. If He is One in the Father to you, than that is to what it refers. If He is Triune to me, than that is to what it refers.

Ha-Shem literally means "the Name". It is used in place of YHWH in spoken Hebrew, and occasionally in written Hebrew too (as a more modern substitution--in the past they more often used Adonai, 'the Lord', as a written substitute).

God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, `YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': this is My Name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:15)

Therefore David blessed YHWH in the presence of all the assembly; and David said: "Blessed art thou, YHWH, the God of Israel, our Father for ever and ever. (1 Chronicles 29:10)

YHWH, Ha-Shem, is here declared the Father. Not a separate person within the Godhead. It is this same God, the Father, as I cited earlier today, who is called Savior and Redeemer. The sons of God are not themselves gods, but rather are those who trust in and obey Him.

[DouglasKC]

But it existed, at least at some point, in Heaven, and so was not in our physical world, which is part of what you use to define the Holy Spirit? Or are you saying that the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God, whether it is in Heaven or on Earth? (In which case, I would ask you -- Is God not now manifest in Heaven because the Holy Spirit is down here on Earth?)

We obviously don't have the capability to experience heaven as long as we are still physical beings...it's outside of our physical reality. Scripture tells us that's where God exists. God does interact with our world, but in the spiritual plane. His presence is the holy spirit of God.

What God is in heaven we can only guess. But what he is like on earth we know....the holy spirit.

Or imagine that God is a flashlight and we live in the dark...him turning his attention to us would be the equivelent of the flashlight beam hitting us. God in heaven is the flashlight and the light is the natural occurence of him in our reality of dark. The light isn't another "person", it is God's presense.

[malakhi]

Hey, mind if some of us orthodox Catholics come up to celebrate the retirement of Archbishop Weakland?

Good idea. Maybe y'all can pitch in and rebuild the cathedral.

[malakhi]

I didn't see no :) at the end of that.

;o)

[DouglasKC]

Jesus was physical while here on earth. He's spiritual now.

So what happened to His body when He rose from the dead? Why wasn't it in the tomb, if He suddenly became "spiritual"?

His body was instantly transformed, probably similar to what Paul describes in 1 Thessolonians...but when he rose from the he was still on earth. He had the ability to manifest physically too. But "flesh and blood" can't get into heaven so of course while in heaven he's pure spirit.

[malakhi]

you have mail Becky

Back at you, .

[RobbyS]

If a Christian is baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then God is The One whose Name is Three.