Initially the story was not about angels at all. It emerges in a polytheistic context, where "sons of gods" (later interpreted as "sons of God" with capital) only meant "gods". So what we have here is a mythological story very similar to Greek mythology, where gods have intercourse with women (or goddesses with men) and beget (or give birth to) semigods, heroes and the like.
Narkissos
JoinedPosts by Narkissos
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21
Nephalim
by barbar infor many years i have wondered about the nephalim, sorry if this is a previously asked question.. i don't undertsand how the angels could have got women pregnant.
surely they did not have any inherent capabilities of producing life.. it seems to me that only a creator would have that ability.
so how did the angels get the women pregnant?.
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French MP's ban all overt religious symbols from the classroom
by yxl1 ini must admit, i was happy when the bill was past taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3474673.stm
french mps back headscarf ban.
there are about five million muslims living in france
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Narkissos
As some further French input has been requested (unless my previous post on first page was missed):
The new law, projected and voted by the right wing majority, may appeal to a number of very different people:
1) The anti-Arab extreme right wing, still very strong in France (as the last presidential election showed which opposed Chirac to Le Pen, allowing the former to climb from his 19 % in the first vote to an incredible 82 % in the second) since the decolonization of Algeria in the 60's, with subsequent rapatriation of the colons (including many Sepharad Jews) and Muslim immigration. However, this faction is very divided, since it also includes an older and still important antisemitic trend (as the dissentions over Near East policy clearly show).
2) The secularist and feminist movements mostly associated with the left wing. The feminists' main problem with the Muslim headscarf being, of course, that it implies subjection of the woman (directly descending from Jewish and Christian tradition, cf. 1 Corinthians 11).
The public argument for the law was of course targeted at the second group, but I'm pretty sure the first one was also in view...
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Jesus' appearance before King Herod in early tradition
by Leolaia inluke is unique of the four gospels in depicting a trial scene between jesus and king herod.
the same account is also missing in the acts of pilate and other apocryphal gospels and is thus probably a lukan composition.
as crossan, koester, helms, and others have shown, the passion narratives are almost entirely constructed of material stitched together through ot exegesis.
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Narkissos
Some background to Irenaeus can be found in Acts 4:25ff:
it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant: 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah.' For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
So the reference to Psalm 2 is not original to Irenaeus, and the mention in Acts is consistent with Luke's mention of the tradition he shares with Justin (perhaps mixing up Herod the Great and Herod Antipas under the theme of jealousy).
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Times of the Gentiles ended September 11, 2001 (calculations attached)
by Brownboy inseptember 11th, 2001
the kingdom of god was born
time of the gentiles ended
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Scape goat desert God.
by peacefulpete inazazel, the god of the desert.
the primitive stages of the hebrew civilisation are not sufficiently known to describe the changes and phases which the israelitic idea of the godhead had to undergo before it reached the purity of the yahveh conception.
yet the israelites also must have had a demon not unlike the egyptian typhon, for the custom of sacrificing a goat to azazel, the demon of the desert, suggests that the israelites had just emerged from a dualism in which both principles were regarded as equal.. we read in leviticus xvi.:.
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Narkissos
A she-goat perhaps? (Cf. your other thread)
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Scape goat desert God.
by peacefulpete inazazel, the god of the desert.
the primitive stages of the hebrew civilisation are not sufficiently known to describe the changes and phases which the israelitic idea of the godhead had to undergo before it reached the purity of the yahveh conception.
yet the israelites also must have had a demon not unlike the egyptian typhon, for the custom of sacrificing a goat to azazel, the demon of the desert, suggests that the israelites had just emerged from a dualism in which both principles were regarded as equal.. we read in leviticus xvi.:.
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Narkissos
Interesting. I personally tend to favor the "demon" explanation over the "god" one. Whatever the origin of the name, in Hebrew there is probably a pun intended with `ez, meaning she-goat (probably from the same `zz root as `oz, meaning "strength"). Hardly a true etymology however, since it fails to explain the 'aleph in `aza'zel. Incidentally the goats in Leviticus 16 are sa`irim, he-goats, just like the desert demons in Isaiah (a pretty good case of polysemy).
Btw, I doubt the early Israelite religion can be adequately termed as "dualistic"; dualism is a later conception which mostly comes to Israel as a Persian influence. However, this may well be the perspective of the Leviticus text, which gives a post-exilic form to an old ritual, while probably retaining a very old demon name.
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French MP's ban all overt religious symbols from the classroom
by yxl1 ini must admit, i was happy when the bill was past taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3474673.stm
french mps back headscarf ban.
there are about five million muslims living in france
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Narkissos
Although I think this is a politically stupid decision, as it will unfortunately result in driving girls belonging to the most fundamentalistic Muslim families out of public schools into confessional schools or even home, I'm quite sure religious discrimination is not intended at all.
There are basically two approaches at State secularism (or laicity): the French one (which I wholeheartedly favour, even though -- or because -- it implies a measure of utopy) is strictly individualistic. It means all individuals are subject to the secular law, regardless of their religion (or absence of religion), so that religion is a private matter and public space has to be maintained reasonably religion-free. The other (American?) approach is communitarism, which implies the State may have religious groups as interlocutors or partners. In the latter one the door is wide open to lobbyism (we don't even have a French word for that, although we have the reality) and that individuals are utterly left to religious mind and life control. Although the present French position may be seen as rearguard and already lost fight, it still may be valued for what it stands for.
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Israel children of Hittites?
by peacefulpete indoes ezekiel understand israel to be a people foreign to caanan?
or does he not see them as indigenous and related to the other nations.
ezk 16:3 and say, thus saith the lord god unto jerusalem; thy birth and thy nativity [is] of the land of caanan; thy father [was] an amorite, and thy mother an hittite.
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Narkissos
This can be interestingly compared to the treatment of the Exodus/wilderness traditions in Ezekiel 20: Israel is accused of idolatry and disloyalty since its very origin (a critical tradition which runs down to Hellenistic Stephen's discourse in Acts 7):
v 8: But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me; not one of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.
v 13: But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness.
This leads, btw to the very unusual comment that the firstborn (i.e., human) sacrifices in their original sense were actually ordered by Yhwh as a punishment:
v 25f Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the LORD.
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my first post
by new light inwell, after lurking here for about 3 weeks, i finally registered and decided to "join the club.
" reading your posts has really been a great help in continuing on the path i know to be right.
a little history if you'll bear with me.... born and raised a jw....baptized at 13, df'ed at 16. i've been reinstated for two years.
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Narkissos
Welcome New light!
It's really good to read what you wrote.
Take care,
Narkissos
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"Son of God" -- some background
by Narkissos inif we just forget about the capitals for one moment, the expression son of (a) god is almost as old as writing (> 5000 y.).
to understand it we have to get back, not only upstream of christianity, but also upstream of the constitution of monotheism in the last 6 centuries before the birth of christianity.
we can then discern at least three related meanings, which we will have to replace in their original context and in the context of their possible reception at the beginning of the christian era.
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Narkissos
Peacefulpete:
You lost me. How does Ps 89:28 parallel Is 9? The El title seems to be identified with God. Did you mean verse 19?
Sorry I was quoting from the Hebrew. In most English Bibles it's actually verse 27. If translated literally it gives:
I will make him (definitely the king) the firstborn (divine begetting or adoption), the Most High ('Elyôn, definitely an El-title) of the kings of the earth.
Leolaia: Thanks for your encouragement, and precious enlightening on Deuteronomy 32. The "seventy angels/nations" tradition is a very strong testimony to the original meaning of this text. Perhaps I should explain what I meant by "corr." (my post was already dissuasively long): the extant states of the text are divergent monotheistic attempts at covering the original polytheistic meaning, 1) TM "according to the number of the sons of Israel (bené Israel)", 2) LXX "according to the number of the angels of God (angelôn theou)", a reading also attested in Qumran. This symmetrical variants clearly point to an original text bearing "according to the number of the bené El = sons of El = gods (later interpreted as angels)". This is indeed one of the rare polytheistic syntheses in the Bible, which reveals the epistemological or theological ground for Jephtah's argument on "each god his people/territory" as is apparent in Judges 11:24: Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that Yhwh our God has conquered for our benefit?