Nooo!!!! OMG. I didn't read the whole thread but I'm really sad if this is what happened...he went through so much. :( R.I.P.
Leolaia
JoinedPosts by Leolaia
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630
SAD news about OOMPA......
by redredrose inour friend, oompa, has passed away.
just recieved the news a couple of hours ago, and have almost no details.
it happened today or yesterday, he took his own life.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Leolaia
Leolaia, I truly respect your opinions and your craftiness for supporting what you say with research. However (oh no!), the reason I mentioned how a circle would not be associated (within this discussion) with a flat surface is because of Finkelstein's reference regarding Daniel 4:10-11 (his post 1143), which prompted King Solomon to inform me that "And neither circles or spheres have corners (much less 4 corners)." You make a fine point by mentioning the "circle of the earth" as in Isaiah 40:22 to suggest a circular land mass on a flat surface. But Job 26:10 and Proverbs 8:27 refer to the circle over the "watery deep" or on the "surface of the waters". So, while that would agree with your presentation that a circular Earth was bounded by a circular ocean, it contradicts the references to corners of the earth (as many ancients believed, especially the Bible writers).
Yes, I see the point you are making, and it is reminiscent of what Ibn Ezra said about Isaiah 40:22 proving that the earth is not square in shape. I do not think however the phrase "four corners of the earth" necessarily invokes a distinctly "square-earth" cosmology. The reference is to the extremities on all four quadrants of the compass (north, east, west, south), or the four quarters of the earth, which need not require the earth to be shaped like a square.
The two Hebrew expressions have the sense of "outer limits" or "extremities". First, the phrase 'arba` kanpôt ha'arets (Isaiah 11:12, Ezekiel 7:2) is often translated in English "the four corners of the earth" (following the KJV) but the Hebrew kanap has more of the sense of "extremity" than "corner" per se; when it is applied to clothing it could refer to either corners or the loose end of the garment. When the expression occurs without the numeral (as in Job 37:3), English translations tend to translate it as "the ends of the earth". The actual word that specifically meant "corner" (i.e. an "angle" between two sides) was pinnah which usually referred to a corner of a building or structure (1 Kings 7:34, 2 Kings 14:13, 2 Chronicles 26:15, Nehemiah 3:31, Job 1:19, Proverbs 21:9, Ezekiel 43:20, 45:19, 3Q15 3:1, 5, 10, 11QTemple 30:5-8), which did not occur in reference to the earth. Kanpôt was rendered literally in the LXX and Theodotion (pterugas) and Symmachus rendered it with akra "extremities". Jeremiah 49:36 makes reference to the "four ends of the earth" and there the term is qetsôt, which the LXX renders as akra and Theodotion translates as teleutaia "endings". The same word (and its Aramaic cognate) occurs occasionally elsewhere to refer to the "ends of the earth" (Job 28:24, Isaiah 40:28, 41:5, 9, 4Q451 9:4, 11Q10 8:5).
It is in the Greek where there is an expression using the specific word for corner: gònia. The expression "the four corners of the earth" (tas tessaras gònias tès gès) in Revelation 7:1, 20:8 is what gave rise to the idiom in English. The use of gònias to refer to the extremities of the earth was not used in Greek outside of Jewish apocalyptic literature and later texts dependent on Revelation. The earliest possible example of this expression is in 1 Enoch 18:2: "I saw the foundation of the earth and the cornerstone of the earth (ton lithon tès gònias tès gès). I saw the four winds bearing the earth and the firmament of heaven". This translates the original Aramaic; the wording however is ambiguous and could be parsed incorrectly as "I saw the stone of the corners of the earth, I saw the four winds etc." This is very close to what is stated in Revelation 7:1: "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth restraining the four winds of the earth". So what was originally a reference to the earth's cornerstone became a reference to the "corners of the earth". The reference to the four winds in 1 Enoch and Revelation was typical of the ANE re the different winds at the four cardinal points of the compass, cf. Pliny the Elder: "The ancients reckoned only four winds corresponding to the four parts of the world....There are two in each of four quarters of the heavens" (Historia Naturalis, 2.119). The cosmology in the Book of Watchers construes the winds as supporting not only the earth underneath but the heavens themselves: "I saw how the winds stretch out the height of heaven. They stand between earth and heaven; they are the pillars of heaven" (18:3). This explicates the cosmological statement in Job 26:7 regarding the north being stretched over the void and the earth upon nothing.
It should also be pointed out that the true extremities lay beyond the encircling ocean in much of the ANE tradition. The Babylonian map of the world depicts seven islands beyond the encircling ocean, including probably Dilmun, the paradise of the gods (where Utnapishtim lives in immortality). The typical Greek cosmography posited a world-encircling Okeanos and beyond it lay the Fortunate Islands and the Elysian Fields in the west (where the blessed live forever), the island of Alba in the east, and Hyperborea in the north where the Hyperborean winds originate from. Josephus similarly stated that the Essenes believed that the righteous dead reside in the Islands of the Blessed beyond the Okeanos, and clearly he has in mind the kind of cosmography that occurs in the Book of Parables. Enoch journeyed to the west to a river of fire and the fire of the west (which is responsible for the sunsets) and came to "the great sea of the west" (17:7) and beyond it lay mountains of jewels and "beyond these mountains is a place, the edge of the great earth, where the heavens come to an end, and I saw a great chasm among pillars of heavenly fire," and beyond the chasm was "a place that was neither firmament of heaven above, nor firmly founded earth beneath it" (18:12). This was the location of the prison of the fallen angels and rebellious stars. Meanwhile, towards the east at the extremities of the world lay the mountain of God and the tree of life (ch. 24); this is where Enoch later is placed where he lives eternally. Other Jewish sources refer to Paradise as at the eastern extremity of the world, at a place that is either already part of heaven or where the gates of heaven are located. So the extremities of the earth were not necessarily contained within the confines of the world ocean. There was a lot of ambiguity and speculation on what lay beyond the confines of the known world, a realm that was both (or neither) earth and heaven, where both heaven and the underworld were accessible. Partly this ambiguity was because earth was usually conceptually opposed to both heaven and the ocean; the realm of the ocean and what lay beyond the ocean was liminal between these two binary oppositions. It is not inconceivable that some could have thought of "corners" laying beyond the world ocean, just as the Babylonian Mappa Mundi depicts triangular islands at the extremities.
At some point, we would have to assume that they believed the ocean surrounding the circle-Earth was square and not a circle in order to support the "corners" theory (if they believed that the term came from a square flat earth).
Yeah I don't think that's necessarily the case. And "corner" does not necessarily imply "square" either. BTW there is an interesting parallel to the biblical "inscribing a circle on the deep" in Herodotus who described the maps made by ancient cartographers (such as Hecataeus of Miletus, reminiscent somewhat to the Babylonian Mappa Mundi), "who draw Okeanos flowing around the earth, which is made wheel-shaped as if by compasses (eousan kukloterea hòs apo tornou)" (Historiae, 4.36).
I think that a lot of that is subject to speculation and is all inconclusive.
I agree with you there.
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494
Jesus wife fragment is a fake
by Christ Alone inhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/21/gospel-jesus-wife-forgery.
gospel of jesus's wife is fake, claims expertscholar says papyrus fragment believed to provide evidence that jesus was married is a modern forgery.
karen king from harvard university holds the papyrus fragment that has four words written in coptic, which are believed to prove jesus was married.
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Leolaia
Yes I am trying to learn Coptic. I'm doing a one year stand alone course at a local college. There are twelve of us in the class and most others seem to be interested in the language from an Egyptology perspective rather than biblical studies, but we are going to look at some biblical and apocryphal texts.
That's super interesting. Well, you will have a leg up in learning ancient Egyptian, if you want to move in that direction.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Leolaia
That tradition is harmonistic; my thread shows there was a little cottage industry in harmonizing the stories, limited only by imagination. It's amazing the number of scenarios exegetes devised. But the stories are quite distinct and irreconcilable without disregarding narrative features. But the reason for the differences is quite explicable from the way the authors used OT sources.
BTW the Lukan story does not say that Judas fell headlong. That itself is a harmonistic reading.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Leolaia
Finkelstein, I discussed the variance in the stories of Judas' death in this thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/116729/1/The-Evolution-of-Judas-Iscariot
The difference is due to the use of different exegetical traditions in the composition of the different narratives. The same process continues in post biblical interpretation, with OT interpretation being a prime source of details in the stories. The same is the case with the difference between the Lukan and Matthean birth narratives; the latter drawing on biblical and haggaaic tradition about the birth and life of Moses which accounts for all the details and narrative elements that contrast with the Lukan story (the Magi, the star, the divorcing, the massacre of the innocents, the flight to Egypt, the return home when Herod died, etc.).
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494
Jesus wife fragment is a fake
by Christ Alone inhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/21/gospel-jesus-wife-forgery.
gospel of jesus's wife is fake, claims expertscholar says papyrus fragment believed to provide evidence that jesus was married is a modern forgery.
karen king from harvard university holds the papyrus fragment that has four words written in coptic, which are believed to prove jesus was married.
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Leolaia
You are studying Coptic, slim?
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38
Schizophrenia
by frankiespeakin inwhile doing some personal research on the subject i came across this.
basically in the jungian world it is discribed as an overpowering of ego by the unconsciousness.
"if the human race survives, future men will, i suspect, look back on our enlightened epoch as a veritable age of darkness... they will see that what was considered 'schizophrenic' was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break into our all-too-closed minds.".
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Leolaia
Maybe therapy might have some benefit in coping in conjunction with medical treatment, but as a replacement it would like debugging an installation of software when it is really a hardware problem.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Leolaia
It's a schematic map of the world.
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38
Schizophrenia
by frankiespeakin inwhile doing some personal research on the subject i came across this.
basically in the jungian world it is discribed as an overpowering of ego by the unconsciousness.
"if the human race survives, future men will, i suspect, look back on our enlightened epoch as a veritable age of darkness... they will see that what was considered 'schizophrenic' was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break into our all-too-closed minds.".
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Leolaia
Recently I went to a talk by a scientist who is investigating infection (or rather immunological response to infection) as a causation for both schizophrenia and autism. There were like 4 or 5 independent factors that pointed to a relationship with infection in the second trimester. One thing I recall is the description of how an adult person with schizophrenia could in certain circumstances have their delusional symptoms disappear entirely while their body is fighting a particular infection, only to have the symptoms return when the person recovers from the illness.
"Substantial research suggests that exposure to certain illnesses (e.g., influenza) in the mother of the neonate (especially at the end of the second trimester) causes defects in neural development which may emerge as a predisposition to schizophrenia around the time of puberty, as the brain grows and develops" (Wikipedia)
Brown, AS (2006 Apr). "Prenatal Infection as a Risk Factor for Schizophrenia". Schizophrenia bulletin32 (2): 200–2. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbj052. PMC 2632220. PMID 16469941.