What is your understanding of the terms "Ransom" and "Redeem"? (page 3)

Doug Mason

Vidqun,

I hope you appreciate why you were provided with only part of the passage from Keil And Delitzsch.

Doug

Doug Mason

Hi,

I wonder if I am correct in saying that everything I and you have said on this Thread is speculation and that this is based on opinion and superstition?

If that is even grudgngly admitted, I would like to offer my Model. Without any basis from scholarship or other resources, I have created a Model based on my speculative opinion that "Sin" is the outcome of "Death".

Here is my simplistic Model.

Doug

snowbird

My thoughts are based on following the common thread that is woven throughout the sacred writings.

Man was brought into existence by a Higher Being; Man fell out of favor with said Being; said Being set into motion a purpose to bring Man back into His favor.

I've set about formulating a timeline for past, present, and future happenings in connection with that purpose.

It has been an eye-opening, humbling endeavor.

One main conclusion I've reached is that God is not far off from His creation.

Thanks.

Sylvia

Vidqun

Doug, sorry, it was a rush job and I did not make myself clear. The Bethel lecture set met off in the general study direction. I doubt whether the Society will accept the quote(s) of Keil & Delitzsch, two German clerics, part and parcel of Christendom, as well as TDOT, and TDNT. Although they used such Commentaries, they very seldom admitted their sources. I personally prefer the explanation contained in Keil & Delitsch because it was well-reasoned and thought out. I also agree with the part you quoted. However, that I have under the heading, "To bring in righteousness to time indefinite." I thought the last of quoted paragraphs might have come from the Society, but unfortunately I cannot find it in the literature, so I might be mistaken.

Ruby456

I wonder if as a result of consciousness guilt entered the pictured and then the need for redemption? So in this kind of trajectory death was innocent to begin with then when humans began to feel shame it perhaps began as collective shame requiring sacrifices. and then with individual guilt humans needed personal rescuing

Doug Mason

As I wrote, I created that diagram without having sought any scholarship in support. I started with "death" because in my mind I imagined Humans and others such as the Neanderthals, living hundreds of thousands of years ago, grieving over the deaths of their loved ones, whether through illness, attacks from wild beasts, or from enemies. Archaeological evidences reveal the care they took with the remains of the departed. This sense of grief is not confined to us as a species.

In my diagram, I made the hypothetical assumption that grief evolved into a hope, which then developed into the idea of a spirit world (often seeing the world of nature manifesting actions by the spirits). The nature of this spirit world reflected the hierarchical structure of their communities, with an upper echelon of super powers, the gods.

I then imagine that over time, questions arose regarding ethics, morality and so on, and in the process this created the concept of sin, along with the consequent necessity to address it. One such resoluton is theodicity. Another outcome for Christians was to provide a reason for Jesus' death, which they did by believing that the Adam story is truth.

As I research the views of the formative church, today I came across the following, which supports my hypothesis that the narrative began with Death but that the Church later reversed this to say that the story began with Sin.

Doug

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"The crucial question of origin for the Hebrew writers and earliest Christian writers was more about the origin of death than of sin. Why are human beings created only to face death? Why is the created order, a product of divine goodness, the source of tragedy and suffering? These dilemmas invite a theodicy, an explanation of how God is powerful, good, and loving and yet there is evil. Death faces humankind as an evil. To attribute to sin the introduction of death into the created order places the blame for such evil on the side of humans, not God. By their rejection of God’s will, it was argued in both the Hebrew and Christian traditions, human beings brought death into a world where it had been absent. Death is the punishment for sin." (Original Sin, Wiley, page 53)

Ruby456

Yes I find this explanation fascinating Dough

in the non-human world death seems to be something that happens - a part of life.

for me theodicy entered the picture when humans wanted to punish other humans as in Hesiod and to frame a movement from a past golden age to a present evil age.

Ruby456

opps the editt function seems to not be working. I want to add a thought to line 2 above that 'death as something that happens - apart of life' - is sort of like saying death was innocent.

snowbird

The poet Langston Hughes wrote that at his funeral wake, he wanted everyone to wear red, because there was no point in his being dead.

It is my humble opinion that the Bible's explanation of what causes death is the most plausible of all.

Even so, questions still abound, and that is a good thing.

Sylvia

Scully

Ransom: money that is paid in order to free someone who has been captured or kidnapped

Redeem: to buy or pay off; clear by payment

I'd never thought of the Biblical usage of those words in terms of me being held in captivity against my will, and needing someone to pay for my freedom, but now, that all seems pretty creepy.

What is your understanding of the terms "Ransom" and "Redeem"?

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