Posted on 02/11/2010 10:51:17 AM PST by NYer
John
Chapter 14
Good article. :)
The smiting is not just implied in the New Testament. Jesus talked frankly about Hell. And the smiting that occurs in Revelations in the New Testament beats anything in the Old.
But I would not characterize God as “mean and vengeful” in either book. He dealt with some serious serious sins.
And the smiting that occurs in Revelations in the New Testament beats anything in the Old.
"He shall tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty."
I don’t buy it. There needs to be some notion of irony, progressive revelation, mystery, etc. to pull this all together.
If we believe the tramping out of the vineyard where the grapes of wrath were stored is a description of the cross it becomes a rather stunning concept. All the ‘smiting’ was done by those who were not God’s people and it was God Himself who took it on the chin. The vision of the zealots was overthrown completely.
The blood was His own. In this amazing reversal of all of human history there is no longer room for tribalism, party spirit, etc. Which is why Christianity alone has such a beautiful vision of inclusiveness, all nations streaming to zion for incorporation into the very Body of the one smitten and resurrected God.
How do non-Christians establish their inclusiveness? Certainly all of human history says it ain’t in our genes and if we look at the mechanisms hypothesized by evolution how could it be?
*** A semi-agnostic co-worker recently remarked to me that he regards the Bible as so much hooey because the God of the Old Testament is mean and wrathful while the God of the New Testament is about love and forgiveness.***
How Marcionite of them. I didn’t know any were still around.
Probably refers to Revelation as that weird book at the end that nobody reads because it is too hard to figure out.
New International Version
This is what the LORD Almighty says:
‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+15%3A2-3&version=NIV
Old heresies never die.
Is the past tense of the word smite, smote or smiteth ?
[edit]Verb
to smite :third-person singular
simple present: smites,
present participle: smiting,
simple past: smote,
past participle: smitten)
(archaic) To hit. To strike down or kill with godly force. To injure with divine power.
What does smiteth mean? As in “And David said, Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain.”
I’m guessing it means, like smite, to “strike down” or “defeat in battle”. It’s probably an archaic version. I couldn’t find any meaningful definition. Sorry.
I think in old english, -eth is added to the verb the way we add an s to make the verb agree with the subject. Like in OE. “He smiteh the lion” would be in ME. “He smites the lion”. Definitly present tense not past tense.
Very well said. Looking at this from a Roman Catholic perspective, we used to teach little ones the Catechism in rote phrases, then explain more as they matured. But they always had that basic information on which to build their understanding.
Sadly, folks who wanted to be more modern in their Catechetics got rid of rote learning in favor of nice phrases and limited knowledge. As a result, we have at least 2 generations of poorly Catechized Catholics. They never learned the basics and put them in their memory banks, so anything else they learned along the way really had no grounding, so it never stuck. Many Catholics up to the age of 50 would have a hard time explaining not only WHAT the Church teaches, but WHY she teaches it.
It’s interesting, isn’t it?
Interesting that you should mention this. I recently came across 3 composition books from 1st and 2nd grade. That is how the nuns taught; the Jesuit system of rote. In one book, the homework assignment was to write the number "1" 50 times! It looks like a grid pattern :-) What struck me, though, was that they Sisters taught spelling and grammar through the lens of faith. The books are filled with quotes from the Baltimore Catechism.
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, 'Raqa,' will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Matthew 5:22
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