This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - agnostic
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 10
46
« on: July 26, 2021, 08:08:19 PM »
The operant words are "attempting to." There was no sex between men and angels, and Jude never indicated such. No sex of any kind actually took place in Genesis 19, so again, this is a meaningless distinction. 1st, we don't know that there weren't other copies of Enoch's prophecy in Jude's day. This is an argument from silence. Which is not an argument, it's just making things up without evidence. It also contradicts the plain evidence in front of us. 1 Enoch was written in Aramaic, not Greek. But it was translated into Greek. And Jude quotes the Greek version word for word. He used 1 Enoch, not some conveniently missing "other copy" you conjured from thin air just for the sake of the argument. We don't have evidence, perhaps, that there was, but 1 Enoch got it from somewhere, right? 1 Enoch has a complex origin. It is actually several different books attributed to Enoch, written by multiple authors between 350 and 50 BCE, and each of those books has its own compositional history. The opening chapters (1-5), where the quoted prophecy comes from, was written specifically to be an introduction to the original book (chapters 6-36). Those opening chapters (1-5) were written as an apocalyptic reflection on the book of Deuteronomy, and the part which is quoted by Jude was based on Deuteronomy 33:2. 2nd, Jude was quoting the part of 1 Enoch in which Enoch's prophecy was written. In other words, Jude was only validating *Enoch's prophecy,* and not everything 1 Enoch said apart from this. Jude doesn't only quote 1 Enoch 1:9. Jude uses wording and metaphors from throughout 1 Enoch. Jude used the whole book. The only reason to make up excuses why this couldn't be the case is the anachronistic complaint that Jude wouldn't have used the whole book because Christians stopped using it centuries later. He is validating only the parts that he cites. By this logic, Jude did not validate the entirety of the Old Testament, since he never quotes any of it. Unless you meant we should use a double standard: Jude validated only scriptures you count as valid despite quoting none of them, but Jude didn't validate the scripture you don't count as valid despite using it extensively. Oh, wait a minute. I thought Jude was using some other, never-mentioned copy of Enoch's prophecy, not 1 Enoch. Now you're acknowledging he used 1 Enoch, but you insist he did not "validate" it. Do you really think you're being intellectually honest here? You're making up whatever excuses you can think of in hopes that something will stick. Again, you are *reading into* the comparison more than what is said. It is not specifically stated that angels and people had sex Genesis 6 specifically states that angels ("sons of God") had sex with humans ("daughters of men/humans"). There's nothing to "read into" it. This is the plain text, and how it was understood by essentially all readers of Genesis from the fourth century BCE until the early second century CE. The comparison isn't between angelic sex and human sex Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lustAgain, this is the plain text. Sodom and the rest "likewise," "in the same manner as they" (the antecedent angels) "indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust." This isn't an identification of the giants with angels You are mistaking what I have been saying. I didn't say anything about identifying the giants/Nephilim with angels. I said that from the fourth century BCE until the early second century CE, all known interpretations of Genesis 6 (including the one found in Jude, since he quotes 1 Enoch) agreed that it tells a story of angels having sex with humans, whose offspring were the giants/Nephilim. Jesus indicated that in contrast to humans reproducing, angels don't. Here is another example of "reading into the text." Jesus only said "the angels in heaven" "neither marry, nor are given in marriage." Jesus never said/implied the angels were genderless, and he never said/implied they can't/don't reproduce, and he never said he was referring to all angels.
47
« on: July 26, 2021, 11:19:36 AM »
(Hint: Fenris doesn't believe Jesus was the messiah.)
48
« on: July 25, 2021, 04:00:39 PM »
If these rulers had let Israel pass by peacefully it wouldn't have given the Israelites the opportunity to annihilate them for their sin. This is just the old "let me in so I can save you from what I'll do to you if you don't let me in" circular reasoning. God hardened their hearts so they would attack Israel just because he can, so why doesn't he soften their hearts so they would help Israel instead? "Because then Israel wouldn't be justified in killing everyone for their sins!" So... couldn't God soften their hearts so that in addition to helping Israel, they also repent for their sins? Or is violence literally the only possible solution here? All it succeeds in doing is to go down one turtle in the inherent moral problem of God blaming people for how he supernaturally forced them act. my fuller reply, which you didn't quote. It's not necessary to quote an entire comment when we can just scroll up to read it. I quote small parts to provide context for what I'm replying to.
49
« on: July 25, 2021, 03:18:58 PM »
You are reading into the texts conclusions that aren't necessary. I'm not reading anything "into" the text. I am reiterating what the text plainly says, and providing the contextual backdrop for it. Indeed, in the S & G story, it was the wicked people of Sodom who pursued sex with what they thought were men, rather than angels pursuing sex with humans. This detail is irrelevant to Jude. The author had the entire OT to work from, but he singled out these two specific stories because of their common feature: they both "likewise", "in the same manner" featured humans and angels having "unnatural" sex (or at least attempting to, in the latter's case). Furthermore, Jude's quoting of Enoch's prophecy is a validation of Enoch's prophecy, but not necessarily a validation of 1 Enoch. This is a meaningless -- and I think disingenuous -- distinction. Jude's quotation is verbatim from a Greek translation of 1 Enoch, which means the author used a copy of the book. Enoch's prophecy came into existence by the author of that book, whether you identify that as Enoch or some pseudonymous person. The prophecy does not exist independently of 1 Enoch, so Jude validating the prophecy is Jude validating the book. We only have a comparison of angelic rebellion against God with human deviancy. The second story (of Sodom and the cities) is specifically stated to be "likewise" "in the same manner" as the "unnatural" sexual sin as the first story (the angels). The two stories were picked for this shared theme. And on the other hand, we have Christ claiming that Christians will one day be like angels, who have no gender, except when they assume a temporary appearance as such. Here is an example of someone "reading into the texts". Jesus said the resurrected would be like "the angels in heaven". (Possibly in contrast to angels not "in heaven", such as Jude specifying the angels who sinned left heaven.) But Jesus did not say angels are genderless. No such claim is made anywhere in the Bible. Angels are consistently gendered male in the Bible.
50
« on: July 24, 2021, 09:12:02 PM »
I would take the note in v33 ("the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim") to be conjecture on the part of the editor, and possibly also part of the spies' fearful report. The narrator is a third person omniscient writing sometime in the eighth century BCE or later. The entire book is "conjecture," centuries worth of Israelite traditions of varying historical authenticity being distilled through a single narrator. The parenthetical can't be singled out in that regard. His identifying them as "the descendants of Anak" is on the same plane as his identifying them as "from the Nephilim." Or, per the suggestion above, this refers to 'giants' generally, and not the Nephilim of Genesis 6, since no one alive at the time of writing was alive at the time of Noah. I think a more plausible theory is the contradiction is a contradiction, and doesn't need to be harmonized. My objections would be anachronistic if I were suggesting that the author or original audience understood the text according to the objections I raised earlier. I am not suggesting this, however, and am instead offering reasons why we, today Fair enough. The few times it does in the OT, yes. The phrasing here strikes me as unclear, so just to reiterate: every use of the phrase "sons of God" in the OT refers to angels/divine beings. Genesis 6 is not an exception. Although, isn't it 1 Enoch that posits the height of these giant offspring at 4,500 feet tall? Details, I suppose. Some manuscript copies include the statement that the offspring of the angels were 300 cubits tall. Most early English translations were based on these copies, which are the ones casual readers can find online. Not every manuscript has this detail, so critical reconstructions relying on all the manuscript evidence reject it as an interpolation. I think it would be irrelevant if it was part of the original book, though, since ancient readers weren't bothered by such implausibilities (such as Gilgamesh being one-third human, a nonsense genealogical division, or Jesus' head reaching into heaven when he emerged from the tomb in the gospel of Peter). It makes you wonder: if God bound in chains those angels that fell, how is it that Nephilim survived the divinely ordained flood that was meant to destroy them, only to show up again in Numbers 13? The flood story in Genesis 6-9 (rife with textual inconsistencies, since it's really two versions puzzle-pieced together) were integrated into Genesis at a time after the Torah was already nearing completion. Before the flood's addition, Genesis had Noah being born to Lamech, the angels producing the Nephilim from human women, then Noah planting his vineyard. Some critical readers think there are textual cues that the flood story replaced a shorter narration of a drought or famine (the condition of Adam and Cain's difficult relationship to the ground being worsened over time), which was remedied with Noah, "a man of the ground." The Nephilim was an etiology used to explain the gigantic residents of Canaan that Israel faced after the exodus (including Og of Bashan and, anachronistically, the Philistine giants like Goliath or the six-fingered man). The flood's insertion into the Genesis narrative resulted in a contradiction. This of course isn't an unusual alternative reading The Sethite view isn't unusual, no. But we have no evidence of this reading until Christians needed to invent a new interpretation because they were uncomfortable with the one that had been around the previous five centuries or so. When an interpretation is being invented that long after a text has been written, specifically for the purpose of theological harmonization, I am immediately skeptical of it being a plausible interpretation. There's clearly room for compelling alternatives to the fallen angel view If the religiously devout think there is a theological necessity for different readings, they will find them. But I don't agree there is any room for these alternative readings in the text as it stands, the text as it is critically analyzed, or the historical context the text was written in.
51
« on: July 24, 2021, 08:30:43 PM »
God actively hardening people's hearts, then killing, say, their first born children, doesn't seem to jive with how the OT describes God elsewhere. Honestly? It's entirely in line with how God acts in parts of the OT. Examples Deuteronomy 2:30 But King Sihon of Heshbon was not willing to let us pass through, for the LORD your God had hardened his spirit and made his heart defiant in order to hand him over to you, as he has now done. Joshua 11:20 For it was the LORD’s doing to harden their hearts so that they would come against Israel in battle, in order that they might be utterly destroyed, and might receive no mercy, but be exterminated, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. Without incredible mental gymnastics or seriously twisting the text, the Bible plainly assigns responsibility to God in these cases, not the people, for their "hardened hearts," saying that he did so to "rig" events to enable Israel's invasion of Canaan. (Couldn't God have just done the reverse? Softening their hearts to make them more compassionate toward the plight of the wandering Israelites?) And see John 12:40, which quotes Isaiah 6:10, "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart," to explain why people didn't believe Jesus was the messiah even after witnessing miracles he performed. The author is saying God actively caused people to stubbornly disbelieve what they say with their own eyes (compare). And there are several examples in the OT of God killing children, ordering children to be killed, or orchestrating the deaths of children.
52
« on: July 24, 2021, 08:09:48 PM »
He's certainly a South American Jesuit.
The Bible doesn't say anything about this pope, or any pope.
53
« on: July 24, 2021, 04:45:16 PM »
Or is that what the spies said, out of fear, having not been around during the time of Noah to see what the Nephilim actually looked like? The people are strong! The land devours everyone!! THERE ARE NEPHILIM!!! I do not agree that dismissing the scouts' claim that they saw Nephilim as cowardly hyperbole is an honest interpretation of the text. (The narrative goes on to prove their concerns correct.) The narrator of the book inserts a parenthetical note that says the Anakites in Canaan are descended from the Nephilim. Let's not ignore that: Your objections are anachronistic. The ancient world did not share your criticisms. "The sons of God" (sons of elohim) elsewhere in the Old Testament always refers to angels. The label evolved from a regional term for the divine beings in heaven, the "sons of El." It's not a coincidence the earliest interpretations of Genesis 6 all agreed the "sons of God" were angels who had sex with humans and fathered giants. 1 Enoch (fourth century BCE through first century BCE), the Septuagint (third century BCE), Jubilees (third century BCE), the Dead Sea Scrolls (third century BCE through first century CE), Philo (first century CE), Josephus (first century CE), Jude (first century CE). Christian acceptance of this interpretation continued for a few centuries before waning. The epistle of Jude is the earliest Christian text to weigh in on the issue. Its author regarded 1 Enoch as scripture equal to the traditional Old Testament. The author borrows a lot of his wording and metaphors from 1 Enoch, and quotes a Greek translation of 1 Enoch 1:9 in Jude 1:14-15. Then we have Jude 1:6-7 And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgement of the great day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude first mentions angels that sinned, then he mentions how Sodom "indulged in sexual immorality". He is presenting two stories from Genesis in sequence. The second is obviously from Genesis 19, where the men of Sodom attempt to have sex with angels. He also says that Sodom engaged in sexual sin "likewise" and "in the same manner as they," the antecedent angels who "left their proper dwelling." Which story in Genesis 1-18 could be read as angels "indulged in sexual immorality?" Clearly, the same story every reader of Genesis agreed up until Jude's time was a story about angels committing a sexual sin and producing the Nephilim.
54
« on: July 24, 2021, 03:59:18 PM »
The fact the Jewish People continue to reject NT Scriptures written by Jews is an oddity to me "Not every Black person knows every other Black person." A handful of Jews wrote parts of the NT. Why in the world would that mean all Jews must agree with the NT, then? Even this idea you lay out is an expression of antisemitism (which, honestly, is pervasive in the theology you've been exhibiting in these threads). You might not be conscious of this, but calling an ethnic group's lack of a hive-mind mentality "an oddity" is pretty dang prejudiced.
55
« on: July 24, 2021, 12:07:15 PM »
Are Nephilim descendants responsible for most of the evil in the world? According to 1 Enoch, Jubilees, a handful of Dead Sea Scrolls, and some NT books which used 1 Enoch. And if so, why don't religious leaders, pastors, etc. ever mention it? Because those other books are not biblical canon in most of Christianity. 1 Enoch lost popularity by the fifth century, and theologians like Augustine came up with different views to avoid accepting that Genesis says angels and humans had children. Most importantly, the idea that the world's problems originated with the Nephilim doesn't easily fit with the idea that the world's problems originated with Adam. 1 Enoch and Jubilees are canonical in one or two Eastern Orthodox denominations, so they've found a way to fit it into their theology.
56
« on: July 24, 2021, 11:18:01 AM »
Outlying interpretations are "us" is used as a deliberative figure of speech (like an individual saying "let's do this" to mentally prepare themselves for a task), the royal we (generally thought not to be a wide-enough used mode of speech for the time, though we find Artaxerxes using it in Ezra-Nehemiah), or the trinity (honestly a view taken only by the most theologically conservative Christian scholars, that is, the minority view).
From what I've found, most of scholarship identifies it as God speaking to the "divine council," an element originating in near eastern polytheism that lingered within Judaism as its theology evolved. The divine council was identified as the community of angels in heaven who serve God, witness his works, and carry out his commands. God creates, they participate by watching the act, and they likewise share God's image since they are also sapient creatures. Compare Job 15:7-8, where "the council of God" is mentioned in connection to "the firstborn of humanity." Examples of other glimpses of this council in Hebrew thought are seen in Genesis 11, Isaiah 6, 2 Kings 22, and Daniel 7. There is more evidence of it, but this is the summary.
57
« on: July 23, 2021, 08:11:18 PM »
I've never seen anyone get so excited at the ideas that the Jews will be punished as you are. Antisemitism is actually extremely common in American Evangelical end times stuff (example: this thread). Not to get into the political side of it, but to comment on the theological side: Christian "Zionism" is waaay less about God keeping his covenant promises to the Jews, and much more about the restoration of Israel being a catalyst for the end times... which is when, the same theology believes, the majority of Jews will follow the Antichrist and be killed by God in punishment. Whatever the political achievements might be, the theological aspect of this Christian teaching is not rooted in compassion for a historically oppressed people.
58
« on: July 22, 2021, 02:36:22 PM »
No, I answered the question. You absolutely did not. You said The Law contained a conditional provision which, if broken, would destroy the deal for all time. and in response, both Fenris and I have asked several times for you to cite even a single verse from the Law which says what you claimed it says. After several back-and-forths, you finally acknowledged the request, but still refused to quote any part of the Torah which says this thing. You typed nineteen paragraphs defending your claim, even insisting you did provide a chapter-and-verse reference, yet nowhere in any of your comments in this thread can we find a citation from the Torah that says what you originally claimed. At what point can we just call this obvious lie a "lie"?
59
« on: July 22, 2021, 02:28:59 PM »
The lesson is clear. God extends His mercy. But His mercy has limits. Yes? I'd like a biblical verse for that too, if you please.
I remember this one! Lamentations 3:22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end ... Wait.
60
« on: July 22, 2021, 10:42:39 AM »
Hebrews 7:6 It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.
Psalms 92:6 The dullard cannot know, the stupid cannot understand this.
Judges 6:40 And God did so that night.
Let the one with ears to listen understand...
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 10
|
Is free will a failed concept?
by Sojourner
Yesterday at 09:47:23 PM
|
Watcha doing?
by Slug1
Yesterday at 09:00:15 PM
|
The Jews will be kept safe in the Great Tribulation
by Slug1
Yesterday at 08:56:56 PM
|
Do you know then God of Jesus?
by Athanasius
August 14, 2024, 03:37:17 AM
|
Jesus God
by Athanasius
August 13, 2024, 05:42:24 PM
|
I got saved
by Fenris
August 13, 2024, 01:12:01 PM
|
How to reconcile?
by Fenris
August 08, 2024, 03:08:32 PM
|
Problem solved
by Sojourner
August 04, 2024, 05:25:26 PM
|
Quotable Quotes
by Sojourner
August 04, 2024, 04:35:36 PM
|
Plea deal for the 9/11 conspirators
by Fenris
August 04, 2024, 01:59:43 PM
|
The New Political Ethos
by RabbiKnife
July 31, 2024, 09:04:59 AM
|
Trump shooting
by Fenris
July 25, 2024, 11:50:40 AM
|
woke
by Sojourner
July 24, 2024, 11:32:11 AM
|
The Rejection of Rejection
by Fenris
June 27, 2024, 01:15:58 PM
|
Eschatology - Introduction PLEASE READ
by Stephen Andrew
June 22, 2024, 05:39:59 AM
|
Baptism and Communion
by Stephen Andrew
June 22, 2024, 05:35:20 AM
|
Faith and peace
by Stephen Andrew
June 22, 2024, 05:32:43 AM
|
Is the US its own worst enemy?
by Sojourner
June 11, 2024, 11:58:28 AM
|
Telling people about offerings
by tango
June 06, 2024, 10:57:09 PM
|
Matthew 24 - carefully analyzed.
by Kfawn
June 06, 2024, 09:32:53 PM
|
|
|