Many scholars have written that El/Elohim is a "generic" Semitic term for "God." This appears to have been the case when the Bible was written. The word is found in cognate languages to Hebrew; i.e., "ilu" in Akkadian, "elah/alah" in Aramaic, "ilah/allah" in Arabic. As for the proper vowels to put with the name YHWH in Hebrew, no one really knows. The form "Yahweh" is based primarily on Greek transliterations of how the name was pronounced by some people in the first or second centuries A.D. But even those Greeks had different ways of spelling and pronouncing it: IABE (which may indicate a two-syllable word), IAOUE (which may indicate a three-syllable word), etc. Eminent scholars have argued for both "Yahweh" and "Yahuweh," as well as other possibilities. The more ancient Hebrew texts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, give no indication of what vowels went with the Hebrew term YHWH originally. Every modern reconstruction is just that -- a reconstruction.
accuracy
JoinedPosts by accuracy
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El & Yahweh
by SharonUT inwho do jehovah's witnesses say they are?
do they say they are both jehovah?
also, is the new world translation bible on-line to look at?
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El & Yahweh
by SharonUT inwho do jehovah's witnesses say they are?
do they say they are both jehovah?
also, is the new world translation bible on-line to look at?
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I got it when she mentioned Niels Peter Lemche, a well-known "biblical minimalist." Biblical minimlaists are folks who take a purely human view of the Bible and accept the Documentary Hypothesis, that the Bible was composed late in time, after the Jewish return from Bablyonian exile, and that two of its editors can be identified by whether they use the names Yahweh or Elohim.
"The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible" (HarperCollins, 1999) shows that the scroll named 4QDeut renders Deuteronomy 32:8 as "When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated humankind, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of God." But the Septuagint (LXX) renders the last part "according to the number of the angels of God (Greek text: angelon theou).
Though this reading appears to reflect a text different from the traditonal Masoretic text, there is no significant theological point here. Many other verses in the traditional Masoretic text identify "sons of God" with "angels of God." Even Israel itself is called "God's son." None of this portends any distinction between El and Yahweh, or any "subordination" of Yahweh by El. These ideas are drawn, not from the Bible, but from Canaanite myths, and some scholars wish to superimpose Canaanite theology upon the Bible. Traditional Jewish Orthodox theology recognizes that Yahweh has a "council" of angels or divine "sons," in fact many Jewish commentators state that it was to such a council that God spoke when he said, "Let US make man in OUR image, according to OUR likeness..." Traditional Judaism also teaches that different nations had an angelic "son" or patron over them, but Israel was Yahweh's special possession, as the Bible states many times.
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To ALL Jw's and Lurkers!
by VeniceIT ini've noticed several posts the last few days slamming people with different beliefs.
now i enjoy a good debate but i think this is something that you who claim to believe or follow the teachings of the wts should keep in mind.
now i will only be using scriptures so you need not worry!.
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Jesus was a little more specific. He said the separation was on the basis of how people treated "the least of these my brethren." It depends on who you consider his "brethren" to be.
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Pentecost 33CE What really happened.
by biblexaminer inforeword.
and if they were not in the "upper chamber" at pentecost, where were they?
or is it "acts of the apostles"?
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You mean to say the Pentecostals are wrong about Pentecost?
My goodness, whom can you trust?
Many of your points were interesting, but hardly revolutionary, one way or the other. Christians have been working out certain specifics of Biblical accounts for thousands of years, it seems.
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Did David suffer VD?
by accuracy instds are all in the news these days and they are not new.
as a health professional i was struck (during a recent reading of psalm 38) with the query: did david suffer from a "social disease?
" david had many foreign women.
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waiting, thank you for the welcome.
I don't read the King James Version much, but in this instance it appears to be right on target in its rendition of Psalm 38:7:
For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease;
and there is no soundness in my flesh.Back there when, as you noted, there was little or no treatment for such diseases (though probably "folk medicine"), it must have been truly frightening. I supose that in reality, time alone took care of the problem, but leaving some physical and emotional scars.
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Did David suffer VD?
by accuracy instds are all in the news these days and they are not new.
as a health professional i was struck (during a recent reading of psalm 38) with the query: did david suffer from a "social disease?
" david had many foreign women.
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accuracy
STDs are all in the news these days and they are not new. As a health professional I was struck (during a recent reading of Psalm 38) with the query: Did David suffer from a "social disease?" David had many foreign women. And Bathsheba was formerly the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Because Israel's laws of physical and ceremonial purity were of a high level, if an STD was involved it no doubt came from elsewhere. But just listen to David's complaint (from the New Living Bible, unless indicated otherwise):
O Lord, don't rebuke me in your anger!
Don't discipline me in your rage...
Because of your anger, my whole body is sick;
my health is broken because of my sins...
My wounds fester and stink
because of my foolish sins.
I am bent over and racked with pain...
["My back is filled with searing pain," NIV]
A raging fever burns within me,
["for my loins burn with fever," Revised English Bible]
and my health is broken.
I am exhausted and completely crushed....
My heart beats wildly, my strength fails,
and I am going blind.
My loved ones and friends stay away,
fearing my disease....According to Webster, "loins" includes "the pubic region" or "the generative organs." Possible diagnosis (speculation, of course): In his diddling around, David got more than he bargained for, and considered it to be one more affliction as punishment for his sin(s), here unspecified.
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Wisdom Personified
by ozziepost inthe next time a householder says to you: everyone has his own interpretation of the bible, how will you respond?
perhaps you will use the suggestion from the reasoning book (page 65) you might reply: and obviously not all of them are right.
you might add: twisting the scriptures to fit our own ideas can result in lasting harm .
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I was using the word "interpretation" as it is generally understood. But you are right. -- Genesis 40:8
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Wisdom Personified
by ozziepost inthe next time a householder says to you: everyone has his own interpretation of the bible, how will you respond?
perhaps you will use the suggestion from the reasoning book (page 65) you might reply: and obviously not all of them are right.
you might add: twisting the scriptures to fit our own ideas can result in lasting harm .
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A check of commentaries on 1 Corinthians demonstrates aptly that there are many interpretations of Paul's linking Christ with God's wisdom, and, of course, one is entitled to one's interpretation. Ideally, however, a convincing interpretation will not negate the plain sense of what Paul is saying specifically. He is not saying that, in a metaphysical sense, Christ = God's wisdom, or that Christ is the totality of God's wisdom. What he is saying simply is that the Christ salvation event, or as commonly put, "Christ crucified," is the Divine wisdom that turns human wisdom upside down and that, in the larger context, creates a new, saved community. But it first starts with Christ as the representative of, the vehicle of, this wisdom. Or, as bible scholar F. F.Bruce puts it in his commentary here, in this matter Christ becomes the personification or "embodiment" of Divine wisdom. (The International Bible Commentary, Zondervan, 1986, p. 1352). In a similar way Wisdom is personified or "embodied" in Proverbs 8.
I am not partial to one interpretation or another, except that for me, the fundamental meanings of the Greek text have to be taken into consideration. Context informs text, but it cannot negate text. Text must serve as legal limits or bounds of interpretation. Otherwise, we have chaos.
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Wisdom Personified
by ozziepost inthe next time a householder says to you: everyone has his own interpretation of the bible, how will you respond?
perhaps you will use the suggestion from the reasoning book (page 65) you might reply: and obviously not all of them are right.
you might add: twisting the scriptures to fit our own ideas can result in lasting harm .
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The points I made were simple enough:
(1) Early Christian commentators as well as modern ones, do indeed apply Proverbs 8:22 to Christ. Whether their interpretation is correct or not, it is a fact that they have made the association.
(2) Paul also associates Christ with God's Wisdom. While context is truly important, the context of 1 corinthians 1 does not negate Paul's association of Christ with wisdom. As one of the sub-texts of the context, Paul is speaking of the specific and unique role of Christ in the salvation story, specifically his death as ransom. We cannot wrest Paul's direct relation in the text itself: Christon theou dunamin kay theou sophian. As if to emphasize the point, Paul revisits it in verse 30: Christo Iesou hos egenethe sophia hemin apo theou: "Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God..."
Before 'faith and belief in Christ' can be wisdom for the believer, it must be understood that Christ himself is an expression of Divine wisdom in the salvific event. No, this is not to say that Paul is discussing Proverbs 8, or even alluding to it. Just that he makes a similar application. For Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is also not mere mental ability, but creative act. For Paul, it is redeeming act.
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Wisdom Personified
by ozziepost inthe next time a householder says to you: everyone has his own interpretation of the bible, how will you respond?
perhaps you will use the suggestion from the reasoning book (page 65) you might reply: and obviously not all of them are right.
you might add: twisting the scriptures to fit our own ideas can result in lasting harm .
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accuracy
I don't understand the point of this post. From the earliest days of the Church, Jesus Christ has been associated with the figure of Wisdom at Proverbs 8:22. For example, Justin Martyr (AD 110-165) wrote in his Dialogue With Trypho, about Christ: "That Christ being Lord...and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at trhe bush...and as it is written in the book of Wisdom, 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting he established me in the beginning, before He formed the earth'....The Scripture has declared that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before all things created."
Many other faith professions, not just Jehovah's Witnesses, have associated Proverbs 8:22 with Jesus in his prehuman existence.
"But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, he is Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." -- 1 Corinthians 1:20, Barclay.
The grammatical gender of the Hebrew word is irrelevant here, since the Greek word for "wisdom" (sophia) at 1 Corinthians 1:20 is also feminine, yet Paul clearly applies it to Christ.