The later Greek myths that I have seen generally have them as offspring of Gaia and Ouranus (primeval or near-primeval deities of earth and heavens). The most prominent members of the standard Greek pantheon were then offspring of said Titans.
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You’re feeding the pigeon.
It seems to have been viewed at least by some as the lowest part of Hades, thus possibly putting it at the bottom of Sheol might make sense.
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That’s more likely given the time period involved.
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Shell oil company came to mind and it makes me wonder if the words ‘shell’ and ‘sheol’ might be related.
The word “shell” comes from the Old English word sciell or scell, which is of Germanic origin. It is related to the Dutch word schel, which means “scale, shell”. The word “shell” can be traced back to Proto-Germanic skaljo, which means “piece cut off; shell; scale”.
What I meant was as far as God is concerned time is not a factor. Yes He can act as fast as the blink of an eye but he can also take a thousand years to accomplish His work.
Because Peter was talking metaphorically and not literally.
The point the scoffers are making it has been so long, using the time since creation to mean since the beginning of time, Christ isn’t coming back. So Peter isn’t trying to establish exactly how long that has been. You are.
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Exactly… and much more than a thousand years if that is how He chooses to accomplish His work of creation.
Yes, Peter was talking metaphorically but that does not mean that it cant also be literal… or turn out to be literal. An example of a metaphor that is also literal is “blood is thicker than water” which means family ties are stronger than other relationships.
When you say one thing is as something else, you have an equal sign. When you say one thing is as two things that are not the same thing, you have a problem to solve. They may appear to be the same thing but have different units of measurement. How can 1 quart be as 4 cups and 4 quarts as 1 cup?
With Peter saying that God’s timing is not the same as our timing, he is saying that God is using different units of measurement. His cup is not our cup. His cup is our gallon. A quart is as 4 cups and 4 quarts are as 1 gallon.
God’s days of creation are not our literal 24 hour days. To Peter it remained an abstract concept that could not be measured, but to us, we have the tools to measure when creation happened through science. God inspired Peter in giving him the units of measurement. What has been measured through science just in the last two hundred years lines up with the units of measurement in the Bible two thousand years ago.
Its still related though. The scoffers of the ‘last days’ could be people from our time that already know that God made the world over a very long time period, and yet are expecting His imminent return.
- 2 Pet 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
They are scoffing now and much more so 100 or 200 million years from now… unless they can get what Peter is saying correct.
No – that’s bad grammar! “Is” may equate things, but “as” indicates metaphor, which does not equate things but compares them. Taking any metaphor as literal is just bad use of language.
That’s a rather ignorant use of language – one quart is four cups, it is not “as” four cups.
In context they aren’t periods of time at all – they aren’t things subject to human measurement because there was no human to measure them. Many ancient scholars called them “divine time”, something that cannot have a human measurement.
We are supposed to expect it – else Jesus would not have said, “Watch!”!
Well, playing games with numbers as though metaphor could be used for making calculations certainly won’t get it correct.
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as (5613. ὡς hós)
Strong’s Definition: as, like, when, while, since, because
Meaning: as, like as, about, as it were, according as, how, when, while, as soon as, so that.
NAS Definition: as, like as, even as, when, since, as long as
I think when comparing time periods, ‘as soon as’ or ‘as long as’ would be appropriate.
- A day with the Lord is ‘as long as’ a thousand years.
So when dealing with time periods using numbers, I don’t see how it would be inappropriate to equate them.
Humans have the means to measure time before recorded history now though.
My thought was on people that are looking for a rapture and a physical return of Christ. They are watching or looking in the wrong place.
- Matt 24:40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
- 42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
Taken could mean to accept or receive.
Taken (3880. παραλαμβάνω paralambanó) - To take, to receive, to take along, to accept
So its talking about receiving Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Only if YOU chose to make it literal. A metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.”
And the original quote is " “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” so this cannot be literally true unless you decide to make it literally true. Kind of see where I am going here?
You keep misreading the text. Peter isn’t talking about units of measure but undefined periods of time, long or short.
If you want to make application to today that is fine, but you don’t get to go back and change what the text says based on how you have applied it.
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Only if you want to box it in as a metaphor. Sorry but the numbers line up too well to question it.
I don’t pretended to know the language which is why I look up definitions. If you noticed, I ended up inserting the NAS instead of Strong’s. If there is something better to use, I’m open to it.
Going from grad school, Liddell-Scott, and BAGD, “as long as” applies in cases of verbs of duration in the present or imperfect tense, being equivalent to “while”. I don’t know what your “NAS Definition” is, but I can’t find any instance where “while” or “as long as” applies without a verb as described above. And when used with numbers it indicated estimate or approximation, which fits with a metaphorical usage.
You can’t just pluck out a possible rendition just because it fits your ideas, you have to take it in context, and in context this is nothing but comparison and falls in the class of metaphor.
That doesn’t change the nature of the time period.
The verb, παραλαμβάνω (pair-ah-lahm-BAH-no) occurs in contrast to another, ἀφίημι (ah-FEE-ay-me), and both are being used of persons. In this combination “receive” is not an option; for the sense of the pair they can be rendered as “plucked away” versus “abandoned”. Further, both are passive, making these actions that happen to someone, not things done by someone. Finally, the use of the passive is a Hebraism used to convey the idea of action by God; thus the verse is talking about God taking away people or conversely leaving people behind.
This fits the context:
And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
So no, it is not “talking about receiving Christ as their Lord and Savior”.
You’re like a chimpanzee in a china shop, grabbing what looks pretty while trashing the rest, in your approach to the text, to the grammar, and to translation. You pluck things and twist them to fit your scheme rather than reading the text for what it says.
Quite so.
Yay – I learned something new!
That fits what Jesus said to the Pharisees in the Temple!
Yes – the comparison is between a period of time that humans experience regularly and one that is well beyond a human lifetime. That also fits with the numerological meaning of “one thousand” as “a very, very long time” or “whatever time it takes to bring something to completion”.
LOL
All too often true. Strong’s is a decent starting point, but if you stop there it’s like reading the map of Disneyland and considered that you’ve experienced the place – and an old map, at that; Strong’s has been superseded by almost a century and a half of scholarship.
One thing to keep in mind is that while the Strong’s Concordance is fairly reliable in its lexicon definitions, it is relying on 19th century scholarship.
– How to use a Strong's Concordance - Peter & Vanessa Steffens
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It is a metaphor, no boxing required!
They only line up as arithmetic in your imagination, not in the grammar.
Yes, you plucked out the definition that suited you rather than do any real research, and you took it from a list that doesn’t apparently provide the context and/or grammar in which various meanings apply.
BAGD (Bauer, Arndt-Gingrich, Danker) is far better, but then you need to be able to actually read Greek. Liddell-Scott isn’t bad, though it is even in its revised form almost a century out of date, and it leans more towards Attic Greek than Koine. Moulton-Milligan isn’t bad at all, it gives meanings derived from ordinary use by ordinary people.
Thayer is useful but has to be treated with caution as it has a bias towards Unitarian theology as well as being a century and a quarter out of date. I’d rate Mounce as acceptable but not exceptional.
Best is to use at least three of these always, plus an interlinear that analyzes the words, giving number and tense, etc. – but don’t trust the English given in any interlinear; they are all theologically biased (one of my Greek professors called them “traps for the unwary”). There are other sources that give word analysis but I haven’t seen any that don’t assume the reader knows Greek alrady.
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Unlikely – there’s no evidence at all, as far as I can tell, that this original quote is anything but an urban legend.
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NAS is as long as a New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance
You can receive Christ and He will take you, or you can reject Him and He will abandon you.
Thanks for the recommendations! I primarily use Bible Hub (biblehub.com) which has Strong’s, NAS, Thayer’s, Englishman’s as well as an interlinear.
Interesting. I have previously understood the sentence in an opposite sense: ‘blood’ refering to genetic relationship (belonging to the same family), ‘water’ refering to the water of baptism.
The famous and ‘respected’ 
source of Wikipedia condenses: “Blood is thicker than water is a proverb in English meaning that familial bonds will always be stronger than other relationships”.
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The all knowing Wikipedia says it is a proverb that can be traced to the 12th century in Germany and provides a reference. Or did you mean urban legend as this comes from the Bible?
Hey at least a reference is quoted for this one.
I am not “boxing it in” but simply taking the text as the original author intended. To make it into a literal truth is to do great violence to the text and make it into something that it is not. This is known as eisegesis. This is usually done when proof texting to generate support for a dogma.
Which if you don’t know the original language, and all that entails, gets you into trouble. And I do use biblehub, but are you aware of the source for the Greek interlinear?
I should have said proverb not quote. And what is the NT reference for what Jesus said? It might be the original source of the proverb.
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“Blood is thicker than water” can be traced to the 12th century. It’s the claim that the proverb is a version of “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” that I’m questioning.
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And we know its true because the AI assistant quotes directly from the mighty Wikipedia.
And it cannot say more than what it says on the surface? Making what it says on the surface to be literally true is making it something its not? Because what it literally says cant possibly be true, it must just be a metaphor. Jesus has much more to say to us through the Word.
- John 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. 14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. 15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.
There is certainly a benefit to knowing the original language, and I don’t discount that. But I also know that we cant limit our understanding based on knowing the language. We can end up being blinded in relying too much on that. There is much depth of meaning… He has more to say… and we need to be Spirit led to hear it.
I do not know much about this source. Please enlighten:
I don’t rely on the translation from the interlinear but use it to identify what the actual Hebrew/Greek words are and research further from there.
It looks like the original proverb that was not from the Bible may have been changed/reused based on what Jesus says:
- Matt 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. 27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; 28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Testament could also be translated as covenant.