[Mrs. Don-o]

Thanks for the research. I'm going to have to take time to look into that more carefully.

On another topic: you referred to yourself once as a "Jewish Apostle" (I think.) Are you a Catholic? A Hebrew Catholic? Or something else? How does that work? (Obviously I'm confused.)

[af_vet_1981]

Thanks for the research. I'm going to have to take time to look into that more carefully. On another topic: you referred to yourself once as a "Jewish Apostle" (I think.) Are you a Catholic? A Hebrew Catholic? Or something else? How does that work? (Obviously I'm confused.)

I would never refer to myself as a Jewish Apostle. Any reference U made like that would have been a reference to the original Twelve Jewish Apostles. Yes. Yes. Work is taxing but the retirement is priceless.

You say it's a living, we all gotta eat
but you're here alone there's no one to compete
If mercy's in business I wish it for you
More than just ashes when your dreams come

[BlueDragon]

Both of have been putting the phrase;

What can I do for you?"

into the phrase "what [is that] to me and you?"

The example from Joshua 15 is a close match-up for "what can I do for you" but not a match-up for "what...[to] me and you?" as found in John 2.

Another difficulty here is that the NT texts were first widely circulated in Greek, not in Hebrew.

That complicates the issue, for we don't have anything in the way of early-in-Church-history copy of the Gospel of John in Hebrew, do we?

Please take note that Michael Heiser did say;

"The most generic way to capture what the full statement (“What to me to you?”) means is “what is there that concerns me and you?" "[underlining added for emphasis]

Further, he can be generally right enough with, as he said;

"When Jesus says to Mary, “What to me to you?”, he isn’t saying “What is it now, lady?” "

which is all well and fine enough, for many have apparently been wrong in thinking Jesus was expressing open rebuke to Mary, when --- unless we were to be there and to gather clues as to tone of voice, facial expression, 'body language' etc., for some additional clue as to how he meant what He said --- we are left with

What [is that] to me and you?"

or again;

“what is there that concerns me and you?"

by Heiser's own understanding of this, which comports well enough with other translations of Hebrew idiom -- but not well enough to hi-jack from Joshua 15 the differently presented question;

and Caleb saith to her, `What -- to thee?'

wherein as I made mention -- we do not have Hebrew language copy of John 2, in which we might be able compare straight across Hebrew, to Hebrew (idiom, and/or usages). That is a bit of a problem.

Yet that doesn't slow Heiser from venturing his own continuation, wherein he introduces a shift of meaning;

"He’s basically asking his mother, who brings a concern to him, “What can I do for you?” "

Can you see the change?

The question is shifted from "what [is that] to me and you"
or the sense;

"what is this to me and to you",

as Heiser had originally provided sense of translation for, to at the end Heiser just so slightly changing things, suggesting

“What can I do for you?”

doing so after having leveraged a passage from Joshua, which concerned a groom's own statement to his own newly wedded in order to make things out to be, to suggest that Jesus was doing this for Mary --- more than for anyone?

This thread's title is

Is Prayer/Veneration/Worship to Mary Biblical?

Not being able to find evidence to suggest that anything beyond "veneration" of Mary is in fact biblical (including "hyper" dulia, I might add) it does appear to me that by the route of suggestiveness, with small amounts of re-wording things such as engaged in by Heiser (and hosts of others over the centuries) to make of Mary more than is plainly enough shown; that which was originally gnosticism in regards to "Mary" has been accepted and by now inflated to direct prayers to her, and look upon her as our "Heavenly Mother" to go along with Our (Heavenly) Father.

What are human beings, anyway?

According to Hebrew Scripture of antiquity, Genesis 20:26-27;

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[a] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Let us look into how Scripture describes humans are to be when they themselves are transformed into heavenly realm; Matthew 22:30;

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God[a] in heaven.

What I am getting at is that the "Heavenly Father" is as "heavenly mother" himself also, for there is no "sex" differentiation as it were, in Heaven.

He created us, we human beings.;

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

"Mary" is not our heavenly mother. Regardless of all the past efforts which Roman Catholics have put into conveying and claiming that erroneous idea was in any way truly "Apostolic".

But let me guess -- now what will come to mind is the apostle John with Mary at the foot of the cross?

Will that be where the argument goes next? (...from af_vet, or a few others I can think of).

If so, then please allow me to get ahead of that, for one cannot go "there" and make "Mary" out to be now our "spirit mother" without running afoul of what small amount of Scripture from both the OT and NT (!) which I have just brought to the page.

We need the whole Word, not a squeezing in sideways of concepts and/or principles which are not well established, doing so while ignoring that which is well established.