So aren’t you and Rich the same person?
I wasn’t scoffing. Demon possession isn’t part of any of our creeds. Nobody is required to believe in demon possession. Does your own church do exorcisms?
Aren’t you and Rich the same person?
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The Bible is true, but the writers accepted an ancient science in explaining certain phenomena.
Aren’t you and Rich the same person?
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So the Bible teaches something false when it says there’s a solid firmament separating the waters below from the waters above, the sun rises and sets and the earth shall not be moved?
What really happens, in your view, is that the earth orbits the sun, which only appears to move, and the firmament doesn’t exist at all?
So the Biblical writer paints a factually incorrect picture of what happened? He looked at the sky and sun and then misinterpreted them?
“And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe.”
“I add that the words ’ the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc.’ were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God. Thus it is not too likely that he would affirm something which was contrary to a truth either already demonstrated, or likely to be demonstrated.”
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There are those who think the intensity of Jesus’ divine presence TRIGGERED the manifestation of demonic entities… entities that rarely traverse the earthly sphere in the modern world…
As soon as the ad hoc arguments come out, you know people have no evidence for their claims.
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They spoke of the ERETZ (the land beneath their feet) being—in general—something stable which could be relied upon as the foundation of buildings and life in general. That was the meaning of “the earth shall not be moved.” Obviously, it was NOT an absolute belief. After all, they were very aware of instances where the land beneath their feet DID move. Earthquakes. Land slides. Mud flows. Many of their statements about the ERETZ (i.e., the land, NOT “planet earth”) shall not be moved were philosophical expressions of the fact that humans at the time were powerless to move the ground beneath their feet.
One of the most pervasive misunderstandings of the Biblical text is misunderstanding “the earth” (the ERETZ) in the Old Testament and in the KJV English of 1611 as “planet earth” instead of land, nation, country or soil, ground. So the Bible’s statements about “the earth”—even in early modern English, long before the modern science and even the space problem shifted our primary thoughts about the word EARTH to planetary rather than more “local” perspectives—were better rendered and understood in 1611 KJV English than in today’s English.
So whenever anyone is tempted to interpret “the earth shall not be moved” as some sort of declaration of absolute motionlessness (whether of the entire planet or just the ground beneath one’s feet), remind them that the ancients were well aware of the reality of earthquakes and landslides.
Yes, the ancients got lots of things wrong. Yes, the Bible includes statements which defy modern science if interpreted “literally”. [As always, I find the word “literally” annoying because people define it in so many different ways and equivocation fallacies abound.] But “the ERETZ shall not be moved” did not mean what many modern day readers anachronistically assume it to mean. All humans, then and now, regard “the ground” as something which is a stable frame of reference which continues to support us and life in general. We are born on it and we die on it.
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Yes I agree with that. You and I understand that. The Catholic Church did not understand that. And this is the point, isn’t it, that the passages must be interpreted correctly, and in order to do that we need some method of verifying the interpretation. Otherwise it’s a free for all brawl, and people make hideous blunders all over the place.
I agree with that as well. The fact is the ancient Hebrews had no concept of the entire planet, so eretz couldn’t have this meaning. But many people think it does have this meaning, because they’re not reading the text in its original socio-historical context. And I am arguing the same applies to the demon passages.
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Excellent. Then the ERETZ example will hopefully clarify this sub-thread.
I didn’t previously, because it didn’t address what I had written (two and a quarter solid pages on a topic irrelevant to the topic under discussion). But since you have asked, here you are.
As I have already pointed out, I’ve given you evidence of how Greek is taught in North America as well as the UK.
They don’t have to. The 1968 edition has been available online, free of charge, since at least 1995. Even better, the complete LSJ9 (with supplement), has been available online free of charge (and searchable), since 2007.
I bought my intermediate LSJ second hand. It didn’t cost me US$50. I don’t think it even cost me half that much.
I didn’t show you that, I showed you BDAG on lists of required texts. The Reformed Theological Seminary in Houston requires first year Greek students to use BDAG. It’s on the list of required texts, not “optional reference books”. Likewise, the Royal Holloway University of London first year Greek course has the intermediate LSJ9 on its list of required texts. To drive the point home, they describe the intermediate LSJ9 “the one we use in class and in the exam”. So I’m seeing clear evidence from both North America and the UK, of first year Greek students being required to purchase and use lexicons like BDAG and LSJ9.
I don’t have to. Evidence from actual university and seminary materials is more than sufficient.
Of course. In the Cambridge course I took, we spent probably the first half of the year with simplified texts modified from Aristophanes, Sophocles, and other original writers. But this doesn’t actually address what I’ve said, and most of your post doesn’t address it either.
I’m not deflecting attention from it. I still believe it’s true. I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary yet. Maybe it is standard for first year Greek students to not be told that Greek word meanings changed over time. Maybe it is standard for first year Greek students to not be told how Greek word meanings are determined. Maybe it is standard for first year Greek stents to not use the standard lexicons in their field. But the evidence here shows your talk about what first year Greek students do or don’t need is clearly not in harmony with what schools are actually doing.
But you haven’t provided any evidence for this yet. All you’ve done is talk about your undocumented experiences in an unidentified educational institution.
There’s that projection again. The irony is rich.
Yeah sorry, claims require evidence.
I am not making the claim that my experience of taking Greek at an Australian school is the same as the experience of taking Greek everywhere else in the world. I have made a specific statement and provided evidence for that statement. To the extent that you’ve conceded at least in part to the truth of that statement, the matter is over as far as I am concerned.
I note yet again your habit of dragging a conversation off topic, starting up a meta-debate about who said what instead of addressing the subject at hand, and generally being combative instead of advancing the discussion. The moderators seem remarkably tolerant of this behaviour, so I assume you have some history with them, but I’m not the first person to have expressed objection to it.