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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Who or what was the serpent in the garden of Eden?
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The snake did not lie.
The snake never lied.
The snake was correct on both counts.
The snake is the truthteller.
Is using factually correct information to deceive and subvert lying or telling the truth?
What was the snake subverting?
The snake was subverting the relationship between Eve and her creator.
In Genesis 3:1, the snake is described as crafty and in verse 13, Eve says the snake deceived her. I'm struggling to understand the approach you're using that leads you to see the snake as the truthteller. On the one hand, you seem to want to use rather precise definitions for words like "day" or "die" and you seem to be trying to extract a carefully constructed meaning from the text as a whole with all the details lining up nicely. But on the other hand, you don't seem to be trying to interpret the text as a whole in a literal way. Care to try to help me understand? Have you encountered any interpretations that seem to you to fit well with the text? (My apologies for missing it if you already answered that.)
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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footwasher
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# 15599
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Posted
The following is my view, aided by the Holy Spirit. All the glory for truth to Him. Any tainted material can be laid at my door. You know where I live! Use the material freely wherever you want, to His Glory.
The point is that Paul goes through great effort to say that ALL are sinners, against the interlocutor's stand that Jews are without sin through circumcision. His proof, sin has entered the world through a common ancestor Adam.
Romans 5:12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned –
To understand how this statement influenced Christian doctrine, we need to trace it's use by the early church. The Latin translation is ”in whom all sinned”, a mistranslation that definitely conveys a different meaning, that we were physically present in Adam's loins when he sinned.
Ambrosiaster discussed this difference and, based partly on Platonic philosophy (as per Ireneus and Tertullian) and partly on the practice of infant baptism, he endorsed the Latin version as the better textual choice. (This requires that he believed that either Paul or the copyist made an error: quite a liberal attitude!)
But what did St Paul really say (!)?
Here I need to digress a little with a little autobiography as Paul did in Galatians 1.
When I worked as an expatriate in different locations in the world, I enjoyed a tax free salary. My country of residence required me to pay income tax if my total period of stay during visits home per year exceeded six months. You can be sure that I took great care that my visits home never exceeded that total! Once however, my son got into trouble at school and my presence was required, and THAT year, I fell out of COMPLIANCE, leading to me paying the full tax.
You can say that because of a relative, non-compliance came into my world.
Which is what Paul says: because of Adam, non-compliance came into my world.
Man had to leave a law free zone and enter a zone where law had JURISDICTION.
The ”fall” involved not a change in disposition, but in position. Not in vocation, but in location! The very thing Paul says in the very next verse:
Romans 5:13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed.
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Ship's crimp
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I haven't the faintest idea who Ken Ham is. But it's irrelevant. If you translate "day" in any other way than the literal way then God's admonishment is redundant. As I explained above.
Ken Ham is an Aussie Creationist based in Queensland. (Banana Benders and Sandgropers are all alike to me; I assumed you'd heard of him.)
He also argues that the Hebrew word 'yom' must be translated literally. However, like you, he seems to be confused over what the word 'literal' means in this context.
Like Ken Ham you are merely asserting that your translation of the word is correct. As others have already pointed out the context of Genesis 1 and 2 suggests that your translation is incorrect.
A good example is found in Genesis 2: 4.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Wisdom is not the knowledge of good and evil?
It is precisely that. And the snake such as much.
I'm not comfortable with this generalisation but for the sake of brevity you are using a very greek view of knowledge here. The Hebrew sense of knowing is much more experiential. Hence the famous euphemism for sex.
You seem to be talking about the ability to discern between good and evil but the text is talking about knowing evil in the sense of experiencing it.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
W Hyatt: Is using factually correct information to deceive and subvert lying or telling the truth?
Interesting question. I believe that the truth can never subvert. But I would be interested to look at examples if you have them.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I think the truth can undermine the structure of a false, (or partially correct) but well established understanding. But I think that is correction, or improvement in understanding. Not subversion. Subversion is more about overturning an established order of government, not correcting false ideas.
Though I guess there is some overlap of use.
In the garden of Eden story, what is the serpent doing? Correcting a statement by God he perceives to be false, or undermining God in Eve's eyes? Or both?
I take it there is no argument that in that garden, God is the Governor? It's his garden.
Taking the argument to the limits, the serpent, being a creature of God, and under His governance, could very well have approached God independently and said, "well, as I see it, you are misleading these two. Can we talk?" That would have been respectful, and non-crafty. The story strongly suggests otherwise, i.e. the crafty includes "behind God's back". Which makes the serpent "a priori" subversive. Even if he has a point.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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footwasher
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# 15599
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Posted
I did convey to Evensong that the biblical understanding of death is "separation from God", as opposed to the normal understanding of it as the cessation of neural function!
QUOTE
Whoever believes in Christ never dies. Even if he dies, he still lives. Death is separation from God.
John 11:23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=016904;p=11#000545
A bit like the biblical understanding of "yom"! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Ship's crimp
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
I hope we're all agreed than in literal terms what we're dealing with here is a fiction. There never was an Adam, there never was an Eve, there never was a talking snake.
On the more profound level, though, what we're dealing with is myth. I hope we're all agreed on that too.
But surely one of the key aspects of myth is that, beyond what the text says, you're free to make of it what you will? The reason that myths endure is that they mean new things to every generation that encounters them. Sure, the community of which you're a part will have its normative interpretations of the myth, but you have also to have the freedom to let the myth inspire you in perhaps surprising ways.
So if you ask, was the snake A or B or C or D - isn't the only possible answer, "yes, all of those"?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Calindreams
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# 9147
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Posted
I am preaching on the curse this sunday and I'm taking the angle of the snake being the 'truth teller'. I see the story as a just-so story answering questions such as:
- Why do snakes crawl on their bellies?
- Why do we toil and die?
- Why is their pain in childbirth?
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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Calindreams
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# 9147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
The story of the garden of Eden is always a bit more complicated than we seem to remember it. At the centre of the garden there were two trees, not one. The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam they could eat the fruit of any tree except the latter one, "for when you eat of it you will surely die". The implication is that they should have eaten of the tree of life, but chose the other, which led to death.
The second point is that the serpent was capitalising on Adam embellishing God's instruction. Eve reports quote:
We may eat of the trees of the garden; but God said 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die'
Which tree? And what's this about touching it?
If you read the rabbinical commentaries, many of them refer to all this as the sin of Adam - he put "a fence around the truth", i.e. he obscured it and made it more difficult to comprehend. And of course the serpent was wily about that.
I always saw this as Eve's 'embellishment' - not to obscure the truth but rather to add another layer of protection over the tree.
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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Calindreams
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# 9147
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Posted
How much currency in modern biblical studies does the idea that the story was written as a way to criticize/suppress goddess worship?
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Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I hope we're all agreed than in literal terms what we're dealing with here is a fiction. There never was an Adam, there never was an Eve, there never was a talking snake.
On the more profound level, though, what we're dealing with is myth. I hope we're all agreed on that too.
But surely one of the key aspects of myth is that, beyond what the text says, you're free to make of it what you will? The reason that myths endure is that they mean new things to every generation that encounters them. Sure, the community of which you're a part will have its normative interpretations of the myth, but you have also to have the freedom to let the myth inspire you in perhaps surprising ways.
So if you ask, was the snake A or B or C or D - isn't the only possible answer, "yes, all of those"?
There's a lot in that, of course - in fact I was arguing that very point a few posts ago. The snake as truth-teller just seems to me to be pretty far-fetched. [It's a bit like saying Noah was really imprisoning those animals, showing in advance the nasty and wrong-headed human tendency to stick animals in zoos for preservation purposes. If he had really respected the natural world, rather than been driven by religious impulses, he'd have let them drown, rather than interfere.]
But the primary function of myths is to stimulate imagination and understanding by means of story. So I guess on one level "anything goes".
I'm not sure Evensong is saying that, but I guess she might be. It seemed more likely that she was saying something like this. Close historical-critical study of the texts had persuaded her that traditional understandings could not be sustained. Her understanding represented a better exegesis.
The simplicity to me is something like this. The preservation of the story within Judaism, and then, later, Christianity, means that the story and traditional meaning are inextricably intertwined. Even though the meanings given in Judaism and Christianity are somewhat different. Fall means different things.
Which I guess shows the power of the myth to stimulate imagination! Trying to find an objective independent and better meaning of a myth is a bit like hunting the Snark.
"For the Snark was a Boojum, you see."
[ 08. June 2012, 10:55: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I hope we're all agreed than in literal terms what we're dealing with here is a fiction. There never was an Adam, there never was an Eve, there never was a talking snake.
Nope, not all agreed. But that viewpoint was ruled out by the OP, which is why I'm slightly bemused at the thought of trying to find the "true identity" of an allegedly fictional character. Never mind.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Agreed Lamb Chopped. Why Christians feel compelled to be better materialists than Hawdawkings I dinnee ken.
As Satan doesn't believe a word God says - for 'good' reason once you let go of trust and become self-reliant, autonomous, proud - when it comes down to it, he LIED.
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Love wins
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
*sigh*
I've had a long and rather unsettling day and I can't possibly respond to all of youse. My apologies.
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
But on the other hand, you don't seem to be trying to interpret the text as a whole in a literal way.
In a literal, superficial way, the text is an explanation for the difficulties of life (as Calindreams has mentioned).
Disobedience is punished by God. A more difficult life than was the Garden of Eden follows.
Disobedience is a hefty and universal theme in the OT.
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Care to try to help me understand? Have you encountered any interpretations that seem to you to fit well with the text?
If you want to take it beyond literalism, plumb the narrative's massive depths and get beyond St Paul's shoddy exegesis in Romans then I recommend What Rough Beast?.
I don't agree with it all, but it forms the premise of the arguments I have espoused here.
Basically, God is a git here.
He does not want humankind to be like him or the other gods.
He does not want them to be like God(s) knowing good and evil and he does not want them to be immortal.
Why then, does he place the trees there in the first place?
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
I did convey to Evensong that the biblical understanding of death is "separation from God", as opposed to the normal understanding of it as the cessation of neural function!
More rubbish metaphorisizing of what is essentially a very difficult text.
The Jews in the OT are not separated from God. God is always there. Continuously. That's what the covenants are about.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But the primary function of myths is to stimulate imagination and understanding by means of story. So I guess on one level "anything goes".
If only that were the case. This story is indeed profound myth but Christianity has straitjacketed it into Paul's understanding.
Which, IMO, is exegetically weak.
Normally I don't worry so much about dodgy midrash on OT texts interpreted into the New Testament but this one bothers me exceedingly on two counts:
1) The Christian notion of "Original Sin" damning everyone for eternity exists nowhere in the Old Testament.
This is why Paul's exegesis cannot be taken literally. It does not fit the context.
2) Christianity has taken this notion WAY too far, based on Paul's exegesis and has caused a great deal of harm in the process.
YES we are not whole. Yes we are not perfect. Yes we are broken.
But neither are we insufferable wretches totally alienated from God and separated by a massive chasm.
That's more rubbish exegesis.
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a theological scrapbook
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footwasher
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# 15599
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Posted
Dem are fighting words!
Yippeee! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Now we want a clean fight, no clinching and when you come out, come out swingin'!
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Ship's crimp
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Ohhhhhhh yes we are. They're synonymous.
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Love wins
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
What impresses me is that the creation stories in Genesis seem to have had virtually no influence on the development of Judaism, and there is no hint that the teachings of Jesus were influenced by it. Indeed, the incarnation questions 'original sin', unless it is claimed Jesus was necessarily infected by it. Immaculate conception and virgin birth do not convincingly solve the problem.
Christianity can get on without the Genesis story, sometimes necessarily so. When Donovan told the creation stories to the Masai they were appalled. They knew that tilling the soil destroyed pasture. What made matters worse was that the first farmer killed the first cattleman and got away with it. They concluded it was a version of events got up by the government. Donovan says he never told those stories again, holding that the Massai had adequate creation myths of a more veterinary nature. It did not prevent his bringing many of his hearers to an adequate faith.
What we need to do is develop a theological understanding of sin and the nature of human beings that addresses the fact of natural selection, rather than worrying over the symbolic significance of elements in the Genesis story. As Evensong has indicated it might well involve setting aside part of a Pauline text.
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
Without wishing to channel the former squiggleAndrew, some of these ideas about the fall sound all rather Augustinian to me. There's no need to cast it in those terms.
This is a creation myth. Creation myths address why certain foundational problems exist. If you have to exegete them to make them say something else, you are over-analysing them. By then they are no longer a foundation myth, but something else. Why would the OT need to refer to them constantly? They are straightforward narratives, not requiring any significant explanation. So far as the OT is concerned, they simply establish that the creation is itself good, but that man cannot be relied upon to choose the good.
The rest is simply the demonstration of that writ large, and how the restoration of God's shalom is put in hand by God himself, in giving the law, and the initiative for making atonement to restore the [I]shalom[/I (because humanity cannot do such things).
I don't think I can agree with the ditching of Paul either. If you've ever read any commentaries by the rabbis of this period, you'll find all manner of far-fetched allusions, cross-references, "oh that reminds me" anecdotes, speculations, jokes and astronomical tips. Paul's exegesis is seriously sober by comparison. And he is doing exactly what Jesus did when asked about marriage - he goes back to man's condition, and explains how that is to be addressed.
Seriously, stop reading Paul as an Augustinian, or worse, a reformation propagandist. He is a first century Jew, trained in one of the major schools of Jerusalem. And that implies a number of things, but not the least in this case would be that he would never use just one illustrative framework for making a point. Which of course he doesn't. This one works here so he uses it.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Seriously, stop reading Paul as an Augustinian, or worse, a reformation propagandist.
That's it, really. The legacy of andreas1984? Often wonder what he's doing these days. He was infuriatingly stimulating to have around!
I'd add also the acceptance that, as LutheranChik has often put it, the understanding of the nature of God shows development, changes, both in the OT and the NT. The fierce tribal Jahweh of henotheist beliefs gives way to the monotheistic light to the Gentiles in some of the prophets, and the God of the NT who is not only Love but encourages us even in love of enemies. It's not Marcionite to see developing understanding - that way you can still see the really good stuff in the OT without getting so uptight about the "Rough Beast". At least I think that's what Evensong's "What Rough Beast" encouragement is about. In my case, she's pushing on an open door.
I realised when reading the Jewish Encyclopedia articles that I'm much more an Ezekiel 18 "personal responsibility" person, these days. I think I prefer the Orthodox "ancestral sin", rather than "original sin" view i.e. that it's better to look on Adam and Eve as typical representatives than starters of a kind of "plague on the earth". The settled picture of the ongoing frailty of human nature when facing moral choices just works better for me. An enduring framework for salvation and grace.
Plus it means I don't have to get all that uptight about creation myths. They are what they are, and folks see different things there.
As Evensong says, they are "difficult" scriptures, both in terms of interpretation and implication. For me, they still make the snake a symbolic trouble-maker, but you can definitely see other patterns there. If you want.
I think the folks who still hold to original sin may, nevertheless, recognise something else. That we can hold simultaneously, in tension but not contradiction, the twin beliefs of the image of God in human beings and the enduring weakness of human nature. I know folks like that.
We don't necessarily have to get lost in the tulgey wood of Total Depravity. Don't like it there myself - spent enough time stumbling around before I found a way out the other side. From where I stand, it's not much what folks make of the creation myths that matters; rather it's what we make of a whole lot of other stuff.
[ 08. June 2012, 21:09: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
No quibbles there at all, Barnabas62. First century rabbis were perfectly capable of working out that different genres are involved in making different truth claims. quote:
Job probably never existed, and if he did exist, the events recorded concerning him never took place. The whole narrative is intended as a moral lesson.
(from the Bereshith Rabbah, one of the earliest midrashim).
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
Well, I think you can see both the Fall and Original Sin in the light that the first refers to a potential all humans fall short of any time but which we are all, hopefully, attempting to return to in the grace of the Resurrection and consequent redemption of the situation and the latter in terms of that dreadful ambiguity of human nature which can result in, at extremes, people turning into either Adolf Hitler or Francis of Assisi (there being many gradations in between).
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Well...
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
What impresses me is that the creation stories in Genesis seem to have had virtually no influence on the development of Judaism, and there is no hint that the teachings of Jesus were influenced by it. Indeed, the incarnation questions 'original sin', unless it is claimed Jesus was necessarily infected by it. Immaculate conception and virgin birth do not convincingly solve the problem.
Yup yup
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Christianity can get on without the Genesis story, sometimes necessarily so. When Donovan told the creation stories to the Masai they were appalled. They knew that tilling the soil destroyed pasture. What made matters worse was that the first farmer killed the first cattleman and got away with it. They concluded it was a version of events got up by the government. Donovan says he never told those stories again, holding that the Massai had adequate creation myths of a more veterinary nature. It did not prevent his bringing many of his hearers to an adequate faith.
Brilliant story!
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
As Evensong has indicated it might well involve setting aside part of a Pauline text.
I don't think we have to set aside parts of scripture.....I think we just have to be aware where some of our most traditional doctrines come from and the strengths and weaknesses inherent in them.
One Pauline text has been taken totally out of proportion. As you say, Jesus never worried about such things - quite the opposite if the incarnation has anything to say.
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Seriously, stop reading Paul as an Augustinian, or worse, a reformation propagandist.
But that's precisely what everybody does!
And that is precisely the "accepted" contemporary interpretation.
I myself can only stop reading Paul that way if I separate everything into component bits (including dissecting the Genesis story). And that in itself is hard work.
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I realised when reading the Jewish Encyclopedia articles that I'm much more an Ezekiel 18 "personal responsibility" person, these days. I think I prefer the Orthodox "ancestral sin", rather than "original sin" view i.e. that it's better to look on Adam and Eve as typical representatives than starters of a kind of "plague on the earth".
Exactly! Amen.
And I can easily pick up your allusion to "plague on earth" because our understanding in western christianity has been so heavily reliant on Augustinian/reformers/Pauline interpretations.
It's that embedded.
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
Quote
In contrast to his contemporary theologians, Augustine drew from his reading of these scriptures that sin was passed biologically from Adam to all his descendants through the sexual act itself, thus equating sexual desire with sin. But why should he have reached this interpretation when marital sexual relations in Jewish society at the time of Christ and Paul were considered honorable anAugustineSubmarine’s outlook on sex was distorted by ideas from the world outside the Bible. Because so much philosophy was based on dualism, in which the physical was categorized as evil but the spiritual as good, some philosophers idealized the celibate state. Sexual relations owere physical and therefore evil. Augustine’s association with Neoplatonic philosophers led him to introduce their outlook within the church. This had its effect in the development of doctrine. For example, Jesus was considered immaculately conceived—without sin in that His Father was God. But because o mother, Mary, had a human father, she suffered the effect of original sin. In order to present Jesus Christ as a perfect offspring without any inherited sin from either parent, the church had to find a way to label Mary as sinless. They did this by devising the doctrine of her immaculate conception, though this inevitably leads to further questions. Other babies were not so fortunate. Some eight centuries later the Catholic theologian Anselm extended the implications of Augustine’s concept of original sin and claimed that babies who died, did so as sinners; as sinners, they had no access to eternal life but condemned to damnation.
The original view of Original Sin
[ 09. June 2012, 04:55: Message edited by: footwasher ]
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Ship's crimp
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Augustine didn't have to look that far from the scriptures to make sex "bad". Paul idealised the single state too and implied marriage was a concession to those that "burn".
And all that whoo ha about fornication. He was pretty strong on that. (Admittedly mainly to the gentile Corinthian church that didn't know their Torah and didn't have the requisite moral groundwork for the reception of the gospel).
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
Originally posted by Kwesi:
”What impresses me is that the creation stories in Genesis seem to have had virtually no influence on the development of Judaism, and there is no hint that the teachings of Jesus were influenced by it. Indeed, the incarnation questions 'original sin', unless it is claimed Jesus was necessarily infected by it. Immaculate conception and virgin birth do not convincingly solve the problem”.
Not strictly true.
The Sages taught that all have sinned and lost the glory of God, mistranslated as, ” All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
Quote
Why oh Adam has he (satan) not kept his promise but deprived you of the glory that was on you?
http://reluctant-messenger.com/eden_1.htm
The idea is not that Adam was wearing glorious clothing but that he was clothed, so to speak, in glory. It's based on a wordplay, which works only in the Hebrew. In Genesis 3:21 it says that God made for them "coats of skin" ( תוֹנ ְת ָכּ רוֹע / kotnot 'or). The Hebrew word for 'skin' sounds almost identical (in post-biblical Hebrew, entirely identical) with the word for 'light', so the rabbis postulated that before Adam and Eve were clothed with animal skin they had been clothed with light.
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Seriously, stop reading Paul as an Augustinian, or worse, a reformation propagandist.
But that's precisely what everybody does!
Well, not exactly everyone. There's Honest Ron, there's you, there's me. And probably about 300 million Orthodox Christians. Plus loads of those dismissively labelled "liberal or nominal". Plus Jimmy Dunn, N T Wright and others working on "New Perspectives on Paul" - many of which bust up the traditional prot understanding of the Gentile-Jewish divide.
Understandings on these issues are on the move. Throw into the mix the more daring reflections (given their audience) of some of the nonco thinkers in the "Emerging Church". The straitjacket is getting loosened. Not before time, maybe, but it's happening.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I realised when reading the Jewish Encyclopedia articles that I'm much more an Ezekiel 18 "personal responsibility" person, these days. I think I prefer the Orthodox "ancestral sin", rather than "original sin" view i.e. that it's better to look on Adam and Eve as typical representatives than starters of a kind of "plague on the earth".
Exactly! Amen.
And I can easily pick up your allusion to "plague on earth" because our understanding in western christianity has been so heavily reliant on Augustinian/reformers/Pauline interpretations.
It's that embedded.
That's true-ish. Certainly in much of the rhetoric in common use. But most evos I know don't really scapegoat Adam or Eve for all the crap in the world. They don't like the idea of scapegoating anyone. Too many connections with the nastiness done to Jesus.
With the more thoughtful I talk to at least, particularly those who aren't YECies, the real significance of the expulsion from Eden is that it maps to an understanding of human weakness today. A kind of back-reading, or existential, understanding of the Fall is more common than we might think.
[As a sidenote, most of the folks I know in this category get pretty upset with self-righteous and "lack of real love" tendencies re sexual ethics as well. The two issues cohere. Some traditional understandings of God's holiness have often been used as a cover for human unkindness.]
As one of my best friends observed, "God's holiness in the NT is something children are encouraged to crawl all over and 'publicans and sinners' seem more comfortable with than the conventionally religious. Go figure". He's been in nonco-evo world for almost as long as me.
Kindness always has a future. There's good scope for joining up the dots in rather different ways. Quite a lot of folks are genuinely uneasy about the usual rhetoric. Brian McLaren's books are increasingly read. There's a desire for a more generous orthodoxy.
[ 09. June 2012, 06:54: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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footwasher
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# 15599
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Posted
Barnabas62 wrote:
”Personally, I think there are a lot of red herrings in that particular fishing box. What's unarguable about the story is that the garden is no longer the right place for Adam and Eve to work out their destiny.
"You think you understand good and evil? Here's a different place to learn some more about that. Not safe here in the garden any more. You don't trust me in the same way you did. That's a bloody shame, but not much to be done about that right now.
Don't think you'll like it all that much out there. Well, not all of it! But before you go, here are some clothes I've made specially for you to wear. 'Garments of skin'. It can get bloody cold out there. Off you go".
B62 misinterpretations always available, whether asked for or not.
Mmmmm! This is tasty! I am going to use this. Thanks, Barnabas62!
It's an idea that's been knocking about in my head, but couldn't be expressed. Comports with Christ's words:
Matt 19:8 He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.
Conditions in the Garden are very rigorous. What protects A & E is the fact that they posses God's glory, His ability to always act right.
Now they transfer to a zone with the noahide laws, where the requirements are lighter. But death is still the wages of sin:
4 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed.
The believers of that era needs God's glorification to survive.
Moses comes and raises the bar.
Deuteronomy 30:11 NET
“This commandment I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it too remote.
Actually, they need God's help even more.
Jesus raises it even higher:
Matthew 5:21-22 NET
“You have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders will be subjected to judgment.’ But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell.
It's not coincidence that sanctuary is in the form of land, flowing with milk and honey. Adam's children are going home!
When they are in Christ, they're ”home”! Glorified and given rest!
Quote
Following the era of Moshiach comes the third and ultimate phase of existence—the “world to come.” The world to come is a world of eternal life and infinite perfection. It is a world devoid of every vestige of evil—of anything that sets apart creation from its Creator. It is a world in which the all-pervading truth of G-d is manifest, and every creature perceives its oneness with the divine.
The “mitzvah”—Torah as divine command and as link between G-d and man—has relevance only in the first two stages of creation: in our present era, where it comes to impose the divine will upon a resisting world, and in the era of Moshiach, where it generates a harmonious world, subservient and connected to G-d. In the world to come, however, the mitzvah will be nullified. This is not to say that we will cease to put on tefillin or begin working on Shabbat, G-d forbid—a world that is one with G-d will obviously be in complete conformity with G-d’s will. But the very notion of a “commandment” or a “connection” will be superfluous. Our minds do not “command” our bodies to do their bidding, nor are our bodies “connected” to our minds by virtue of the fact that they do their bidding. Body and mind constitute a single entity; the will of the mind is the will of the body, which the body naturally and spontaneously actualizes.
The laws of the Torah are the will of G-d, and are as eternal and immutable as their conceiver. In the world to come, they will constitute the natural law of a physical reality that spontaneously realizes the divine reality. But they will cease to be mitzvot. The divine commands will not be repealed or amended—they will be nullified, as the light of a candle is LIGHT
[link code edited]
[ 09. June 2012, 08:43: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
No copyright, footwasher. It was just "throwaway" really, to make a debating point. For most congos I'd edit out the two "bloody"s.
Don't think the Garden was about "rigorous environment" though. It's where God was. Heaven for those who believe and trust in Him, not so much for those who don't. The Orthodox (well some of them), see Heaven and Hell as essentially, the same place, where God reigns eternally. Pretty uncomfortable if you don't want Him to reign. The images of light as warmth and fire that burns are joined in human understanding, as we sit around our campfires, telling one another stories of the God we know in part.
[ 09. June 2012, 08:58: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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footwasher
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# 15599
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Posted
Okay, then it's back to the drawing board on that.
BTW, seeing this is the thread with the posts that exemplify who you are, it's a good place and time to tell you it's a great privilege to be a shipmate on your ship! As I'm sure it is to be a member of your congo!
Thank you for your work for the Lord on this site, and thanks for fixing ALL the stuff on the above post!
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
It ain't MY Ship. Actually, it's Simon's by ownership, participation is a privilege. Actually, it does often seem like a very great privilege.
Not my congo either. I'm just one of many. But there's only one of me. Some folks are quite glad about that! [I'm not exactly squeezable into a mold - some folks find that uncomfortable].
But you're very kind, thanks. I appreciated it.
[ 09. June 2012, 09:31: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Evensong Originally posted by Kwesi: As Evensong has indicated it might well involve setting aside part of a Pauline text.
Evensong: I don't think we have to set aside parts of scripture.....I think we just have to be aware where some of our most traditional doctrines come from and the strengths and weaknesses inherent in them.
One Pauline text has been taken totally out of proportion. As you say, Jesus never worried about such things - quite the opposite if the incarnation has anything to say.
Honest Ron Bacardi: Seriously, stop reading Paul as an Augustinian, or worse, a reformation propagandist.
Evensong: But that's precisely what everybody does! And that is precisely the "accepted" contemporary interpretation.
Thank you for that, Evensong, you have expressed what I was trying to get at much more clearly than I was able ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) It's not a case of needing to set aside important passages of scripture, but the problem of removing a defective default position that has become so deeply embedded in the Christian psyche.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
I think you'll find, Barnabas62, that, although the Orthodox do accept Augustine as a Western Church Father, some, indeed probably most, see him as being just one voice in a much wider and all encompassing Church Tradition and therefore not the only voice to be listened to. Some Orthodox, often educated in Germany, did take Augustine seriously, but they would be seen as very much on the fringe.
There have always been English religious scholars who saw the Fathers as representing a much wider vision of Christianity than just Augustine. Patristic study got a big boost during and after the Oxford Movement. The presence of so many Orthodox in Britain has, I think, revived this interest.
St Paul, at one stage, had been turned into a sort of Punch and Judy "homophobe" to be verbally beaten to death by those with their own contemporary politically correct agenda to push. I think they did him a grave disservice here because he was a far, far more complex figure. He had his own personal demons to confront, ones we cannot fully understand from his extant writings. The facts that he is a saint and a major one at that from the Early Church and that his writings were accepted by the Church into the New Testament Canon should make us hesitate to belabour him with our often incorrect and partial current knowledge of him. From a strictly orthodox Christian viewpoint, critiquing some of his writing could be seen as tantamount to heresy. To the question "Why can't I do this if I want to?" an appropriate answer might be "Well, if you do this outside Church Tradition without the grace this imparts you do so at your own peril and should be willing to suffer the consequences of your actions."
So much theological writing and biblical criticism seems to be written without grace from a very narrow understanding of Christian Church History and genuine Tradition. I think that methodology has resulted in the crucial misunderstanding that so many people are trying to unravel here.
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Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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W Hyatt
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# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Care to try to help me understand? Have you encountered any interpretations that seem to you to fit well with the text?
If you want to take it beyond literalism, plumb the narrative's massive depths and get beyond St Paul's shoddy exegesis in Romans then I recommend What Rough Beast?.
I don't agree with it all, but it forms the premise of the arguments I have espoused here.
That definitely helps me understand - thank you.
quote:
Basically, God is a git here.
He does not want humankind to be like him or the other gods.
He does not want them to be like God(s) knowing good and evil and he does not want them to be immortal.
Why then, does he place the trees there in the first place?
I agree, the story presents God in a very unfavorable way, which raises specific questions such as yours and more general ones like "Is that the way God really is?" and "Why would the author[s] cast God in such a negative role?" But I think a more fundamental question would be "Does the reader have to assume that the text presents an accurate picture of the nature of God?"
Now you might think that since I believe that the text is part of the opening of a revelation from God, then I must also believe that the text does present an accurate picture, but my actual conclusion is the opposite. In fact, I would say that the idea of Divine revelation presenting us with a complete, accurate, and unambiguous description of God would be ludicrous. Even the idea of a description that should be taken literally doesn't make any sense to me.
If God has given us the text to teach us what we should know in order to best respond to him, then I would assume that any level of understanding of God that I can derive from the text is inaccurate and even flawed. I would assume that the text would be designed to reach us in our very first stages of understanding and then gradually lead us through successive stages, one after another, with no end to how far it can take us. Each stage would be necessary for us to gain what we need to advance to the next level, but advancing to the next level would require leaving the previous stage behind. This is the way we learn anything complex.
We start with learning ideas that very general and simple. You could even say that in the beginning, our ideas are so limited as to be flawed and even wrong. But as we add details and both broaden the scope and increase the depth of our understanding, our original ideas are eventually discarded in favor of more and more accurate ones, and the more complex the subject, the more this is true.
Consider what it has taken for scientists to get to their current understanding of how the physical universe works. Each stage along the way was limited enough and flawed enough that today we can say they were wrong. Yet each stage was an improvement over the previous stage and was necessary to get to the next. I'm sure that physicists today would say that their current understanding is limited and flawed, but until they get to the next stages, they can't say specifically how it is limited and flawed. And every physics student must go through a similar process to catch up to where current science is. How much more true must that be about trying to understand an infinite God, both for the human race as a whole and for us as individuals?
It seems to me that the kind of question you raise about why God would place the trees in the middle of the garden can be taken as a clue that there is much more going on than first meets the eye. The fact that there are such obvious issues raised by a simple reading of the text makes perfect sense to me if God designed it as an introduction for us to absorb while we are in our first child-like states of development, an introduction that continually leads us to ask more questions and dig deeper. Imagine how satisfying and inspiring it can be when we finally get to the point where we can say "Oh, now I can see why God put them there!"
I know that some people might dismiss the creation story in Genesis as nothing more than a "just so" story, but it seems to me that the best "just so" stories have strong superficial appeal to the very young, and yet also contain morality lessons for older children. Nobody would have expected children to continue to believe them into adulthood, but they would have hoped the children would like them, ask questions, learn from them, and, in adulthood, realize the value of passing them on. It doesn't seem to me to be much of a stretch to think that God could have given us a Divinely complex "just so" story based on similar hopes.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Sir Pellinore (ret'd)
"Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it"?
In some ways, I think the hardest thing to do when considering the diverse voices and understandings is to resist the temptation to harmonise, to make a simpler sense of events than is consistent with what was, and is, really going on. All of the voices are telling us something about their personal convictions and the passions behind why "this matters to us".
To reduce any of them to a stereotype is fundamentally disrespectful. To assert some commonality is one thing, to believe that they are all saying the same is another matter entirely. When considering the Divine, the metaphor which I've found helpful is that of blindfolded folks describing an elephant on the basis of which part of its anatomy they are near enough to touch.
Disrespect for the voices of those who have passed away can breed disrespect for those about us, and vice-versa. It's harder to just listen - and reflect. We may get passionate about the damage we see that has been done to truth, or people, or both, by the dominance of one view or another, but that brings with it the temptation to export blame. Not safe, that one.
Speaking personally, the recovery of understanding and respect for the diverse voices to be found in scripture, tradition and early church history has been very liberating, even when it has been confusing.
I don't believe God is a git. Nor does Evensong. But that doesn't mean that we must close our minds to the possibility that diverse experiences of the "gittiness" of the dominant (whether fathers or heads of pecking orders) might have influenced the minds of those creating and fostering the ancient accounts. If you've had to live under dominance and put up with it, you rationalise about it. "He's stern - but he's fair. He cares, really." Seeing the fairness and the caring often has more to do with hoping than being truthful about the experiences.
Such thoughts can be released by reflecting on the evidence that the authors of scripture, and the folks they picture, had diverse understanding about God. The journey from "God is Jahweh" to "God is Love" has been tortuous in the extreme and the various stories and writings tell us something about that. Hopefully, they help all of us to come to terms with our own urges to dominate and flaunt our egos, to the detriment of ourselves and others. And help us to be more loving, more charitable, in the way we live.
Saying "this is what I see here" and offering it on an open hand is a useful development in such "comings to terms".
And I still think the snake is a git!
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
Barnabas62, I think those of us who were raised as Western Christians, like you and I were, were brought up with a very limited view of what "Christianity" was. I shudder to remember the incredible narrowness of 1960s Irish-Australian Roman Catholicism.
Historic Christian Tradition is very broad and deep and the Orthodox believe it is still developing.
I've found the Almighty baffling but never "a git". My feeling is that we can all, with grace, grow and develop into what we are meant to be. Our true humanity if you will. The Greeks use the word "theosis" which most of us find as baffling as it is illuminating.
It's not so much intellectual concepts I'm writing of but something deeper and not so easily expressible in words: an extremely practical way within fairly broad but Traditional confines.
Put it this way, I'm no longer questing the Questing Beast.
I wish everyone well in their endeavours to find "the Truth" in as much as each is capable of being graced to receive. It is not a solitary quest and I think we can and do help each other along the road. SOF has done enormous things for me and I am and will remain immensely grateful for the spiritual camaraderie; non-soppy love and example I have had from so many, including yourself.
Recently I found I had to make a jump of my own. I found the old certitudes which, God knows why, certain clerics were still trying to force feed me like a Strasbourg goose, were things I could no longer take. I think that happens to all of us. The old certitudes die and you have to jump. Where you go from there is a matter of trust and grace.
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Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
W Hyatt wrote: quote:
I know that some people might dismiss the creation story in Genesis as nothing more than a "just so" story, but it seems to me that the best "just so" stories have strong superficial appeal to the very young, and yet also contain morality lessons for older children. Nobody would have expected children to continue to believe them into adulthood, but they would have hoped the children would like them, ask questions, learn from them, and, in adulthood, realize the value of passing them on. It doesn't seem to me to be much of a stretch to think that God could have given us a Divinely complex "just so" story based on similar hopes.
I know that I said that this narrative was a creation story, but I would not want to suggest that means it is solely a "just so" story. It evidently is more than just that, and I would not want anyone to feel any further exploration was unwarranted. My point was really to point towards the fact that it is a particular literary genre. I'm trying to be helpful - any text can be over-analysed, and I think a useful check is to constantly refer what your explorations are coming up with back on that fact. You wouldn't criticise a telephone directory for poor plot development any more than you would criticise your car owner's manual for not having your friend's phone number in it. Even so, some biblical exegesis persistently does exactly this . Let the reader understand.
I understand the point about God coming over as a bit weird. Perhaps it's just me but it always seems to me that some criticisms raised on this matter (not actually on this thread, but in plenty of places elsewhere) seem to be almost deist in conception. "Why does God occasionally reach out of heaven and do that?"
But the Jews were not deists but theists. Somehow, they had to work out why "shit happens", why God's blue-eyed boys were sent into captivity, and so on. Somehow God was involved, but how? Some of these passages seem to be involved with all that. God is not a tame god, but it is a tougher call to explain how a God so intimately involved with his creation might be involved in these things than it is for a pagan idol or a remote, quasi-deist god.
So I think an examination of passages where that sort of thing is going on could be very interesting, especially to look at how the understanding has developed and become more nuanced, as indeed revelation proceeded.
Having said that, I've had a look at the book Evensong linked to (thanks for that Evensong), and I have a problem with the first example which is the one cited here. It relies on another authors interpretation of the text, as amplified by himself in order to draw attention to the specific points he wants to make. That is not obvious until you study the footnotes at the end of the book. I'm afraid I have to say it doesn't seem to bear much relation to either what the MT or the LXX text says. Which for most of Genesis is pretty much identical. You can only make the snake a truth-teller by changing the meaning of the text, though I am sure it is done with innocent intent. I don't want to criticise the whole book because I haven't read beyond that. Maybe the other examples are fine, and anyway as I said, I think it's an interesting thing to do. But yes, the snake is definitely a git!
[ 10. June 2012, 14:54: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
W Hyatt wrote: quote:
I know that some people might dismiss the creation story in Genesis as nothing more than a "just so" story, ...
I know that I said that this narrative was a creation story, but I would not want to suggest that means it is solely a "just so" story.
Sorry - I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote that.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
Read a few pages online and the gist I got was the Creation story author felt/ thought God was a git and was okay with it.
I'm getting the book and full reading Will probably confirm the first impression. Kinda follows on from Evensong's adoption of Schliermacherian hermeneutics, the get into the author's skin type epistemological method.
Unfortunately, apart from Kant's view that everyone introduces artifacts into a view, how DOES one get into the author's skin? As previously noted in the pomo thread, we ARE separated by time, geography and culture. There's no correction available as there is for altitude or temperature.
Besides, was the author really aware of his message, the basis of author intent hermeneutics or was he clueless like Caiaphas when he rationalized that Jesus death was expedient? Or were Abraham, Sarah and Hagar aware they were playing out the basis, the framework, of Election?
Really, the methodology you need here is Elliott's New Criticism, more than Schliermacher!
Oops! Just made something that is already hard even harder! Sorry, Evensong!
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS—EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE."
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
" IF YOU DO, YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF IN A EUROZONE CRISIS OF YOUR OWN MAKING: FREE WILL COMES WITH A COST "
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a theological scrapbook
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
But actually the free will argument related to Gen 3 doesn't bother me much.
The other extension of this issue is, of course, the idea the many strands of Christianity advocate divinization as the ultimate goal of life (theosis - God became man so man could become God).
More mangling of scripture.
If God didn't want us to become like God early on in the story of salvation, why would God like it to happen now?
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
(and yeah - I've heard the arguments. We were banned before but offered it now. Still doesn't make sense.)
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a theological scrapbook
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Ohhhh yes it does. But only to simpletons like me.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But actually the free will argument related to Gen 3 doesn't bother me much.
The other extension of this issue is, of course, the idea the many strands of Christianity advocate divinization as the ultimate goal of life (theosis - God became man so man could become God).
More mangling of scripture.
If God didn't want us to become like God early on in the story of salvation, why would God like it to happen now?
(and yeah - I've heard the arguments. We were banned before but offered it now. Still doesn't make sense.)
I'm intrigued by that. I suppose it would be better pursued in a different thread.
Given you've raised it, Evensong, would you consider starting a new thread, here or maybe in Keryg?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
I'm not in the right space to start it now Barnabas. Got too much on my plate atm and serious, prolonged, intense discussion is a bit beyond me.....
I didn't even manage responding to some ppl's excellent posts on this topic...
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Sorry bout that.
[ 13. June 2012, 13:48: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
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Mockingale
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# 16599
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Posted
I'm not sure how the serpent could be interpreted as Satan, because as late as the Book of Job, Satan is in the employ of God as essentially a prosecutor, and not yet the all-evil anti-God that he is in popular Christian understanding.
If Satan had not rebelled against God in the time of Job, how could he have rebelled against God in Eden? God doesn't say "Good job, Satan, you revealed Adam and Eve's lack of faith"; He curses the snake.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mockingale:
I'm not sure how the serpent could be interpreted as Satan, because as late as the Book of Job, Satan is in the employ of God as essentially a prosecutor, and not yet the all-evil anti-God that he is in popular Christian understanding.
If Satan had not rebelled against God in the time of Job, how could he have rebelled against God in Eden? God doesn't say "Good job, Satan, you revealed Adam and Eve's lack of faith"; He curses the snake.
I think arguing that the serpent was meant to be Satan is really bending over backwards to accomadate a particular ideological bias about scripture.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If God didn't want us to become like God early on in the story of salvation, why would God like it to happen now?
Wouldn't that depend on whether we wanted to become like God out of pride in ourselves or out of humbleness?
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I'm not in the right space to start it now Barnabas. Got too much on my plate atm and serious, prolonged, intense discussion is a bit beyond me.....
I didn't even manage responding to some ppl's excellent posts on this topic...
Sorry bout that.
Thanks Evensong, I know that place all too well. ATB with what's on your plate.
I'll save the idea for a better day.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Satan, the Devil (slanderer, accuser, across-thrower), the adversary of Job, is the same lying, murderous entity as the serpent of Eden. Also the Prince (Isaiah 14) and King (Ezekiel 28) of Tyre. And the God of this World and the Prince of the Powers of the Air.
But there again, I am a simpleton, known for parsimony.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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