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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Gamaliel, your comments amount to:
‘I find the arguments unconvincing, wrong headed, unnecessary,’ without an attempt to specifically comment.
In addition you attack the man. Anderson was no lightweight thinker. His career as a policeman was impressive as well.
You say you are familiar with the thinking but I do not think you have ever seriously considered these kinds of arguments since all you respond with is generalities as if your own viewpoint, whatever it is, (you never say,) was a self evident refutation.
The Nazarene reference, I consider explained as best I can. All you say in response is that it does not correspond to a specific OT reference..which was the centre of my explanation as to why this may be the case.
I think Anderson may well be flawed in some detail. He does arbitrarily fix the angel’s statement of ‘until Messiah the Prince’ to the point of the triumphal entry of the gospels. I think his presumption here does have Merit though. As I wrote above, Martin 60 demanded (I think unreasonably) specific and even forensic analysis to prove prophecy. I endeavoured to show him that someone did some pretty precise thinking on the 70 weeks prophecy.
Incidentally, IF Anderson is correct, it accounts for only 69 weeks of 360 days. Remember, there are 70 7s.
His thesis if you read him, is that prophetic time differs from ordinary time. Prophetic time is only in play when Israel is functioning in the blessing of God. Their rejection of Messiah, according to Anderson and other dispensationalist interpreters, caused the ceasing of that blessing. Since then, and in times before such as the captivity, God removed the sceptre from his chosen people and as the gospel says, Jerusalem and indeed the world, is now under the ‘foot’ of the gentiles until the Jews bow the knee to the Messiah they rejected when he returns and they say:
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
All this to say the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy is not yet begun. When it begins, people may realise too late, what these scriptures mean. The bridegroom May have come. The door may be closed.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I knew you were going to say that about the 70th week, there by showing how 'prophetic' I am.
Of course I could anticipate it as I've heard it all before.
I'm sure Anderson was a better copper than he was an exegete.
Martin60 asked for for application of the 70 weeks and you have given him what you think is one. By your own admission it doesn't quite fit. So what do you do? You tinker and do a bit of jiggery-pokery special pleading to say, 'Aha! That's only 69 weeks ... That must mean the 70th is yet to come!' Darnn narn naaarnn!
If that's not an attempt to force scripture into a particular framework or strait-jacket, I don't know what is.
The whole thing is a category error.
If the prophecy can't be made to fit facts (as the commentator sees them) then the facts must be tweaked to fit the prophecy.
We can avoid all this futile jack-straws party game with scripture by treating prophecy properly, taking into account genre, symbolism and other factors and not treating it as some kind of commutive crossword puzzle ...
I could undertake a blow by blow dismantling of Anderson's speculative schema if I wanted to. I might well do later today, but it seems somewhat cruel and spiteful to do so, like kicking over someone's carefully constructed sandcastle on the beach. There's no point. The tide will come in and wash it away in due course.
I've rejected - or rather, never accepted - this kind of eschatological schema not because I've failed to understand it, but because I don't think it has any weight, credence or value. I can see the appeal to people who want to insist on everything being cut-and-dried and want the scriptures to conform to a particular late 19th century conception of how they are supposed to perform.
But sorry ... Not for me. It's basically blind alley when there so many rich avenues to explore instead.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
His thesis if you read him, is that prophetic time differs from ordinary time. Prophetic time is only in play when Israel is functioning in the blessing of God.
This basically allows you to arbitrarily start and stop all your prophetic counting when you feel like it, depending on how "functioning in the blessing of God" is defined. It's about as meaningful as trying to keep actual time by reading the nuclear clock. quote:
All this to say the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy is not yet begun. When it begins, people may realise too late, what these scriptures mean. The bridegroom May have come. The door may be closed.
And this is where I get off.
Firstly because these terror tactics do not reflect the essence of the Gospel.
And secondly, because according to you, even if the "door is closed", salvation is still available: quote:
If I'm 'left behind', I was not a true believer but do I still have hope? Yes, if God grants me the gift of repentance. The gospel is still operative
From this, in the Rapture thread, we discovered a two-stage return of the Lord and various categories of believer other than those in the Church universal, including those saved after the rapture by 144,000 Jewish Evangelists, who only get to visit the New Jerusalem occasionally ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
You've said it yourself. For Anderson's scheme to work it has to make assumptions that are extrinsic to the text:
- That 'prophetic time operates differently to normal time'.
- That the temporal aspects only function properly when the Jews are enjoying the blessing of God.
Both those are assumptions. They are not explicit or even implicit in the text.
Sure,we all make interpretive and hermeneutical leaps, but those are some pretty long bounds to make.
All this specious speculation about 'prophetic time' only confirms my resolve to stick with 'liturgical time' and with 'redeeming the time' rather than wasting it on the futile construction of elaborate pre-millenialist and Dispensationalist schemas. Mercifully, from what I can gather, there are more subtle and nuanced forms emerging from these particular systems. Bring it on. It's not before time.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I can't help thinking there must be a way between these two extremes if predicitive prophecy is not allowed to take on the role of shibboleth - which it seems to do for both Jamat and Martin.
True. And thinking about my previous post ISTM a truly rational approach ought to allow an element of feedback - that is, there ought to be some mechanism that causes me to question whether or not my argument against prophetic prophecy is quite as strong as I think it is.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I don't know if you think me guilty of liberal prejudice. If you do, please say.
Not at all. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The 'liberal prejudice' comment was mostly for Jamat's benefit. I get the impression Jamat believes that anything implying a late date for Daniel, with little or no predictive content, constitutes a rejection of the Bible, and thence liberalism or atheism. What I'm trying to get across is that there are other options.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
I could undertake a blow by blow dismantling of Anderson's speculative schema if I wanted to. I might well do later today, but it seems somewhat cruel and spiteful to do so, like kicking over someone's carefully constructed sandcastle on the beach. There's no point. The tide will come in and wash it away in due course.
Still looking for that horse 'n carriage to drive through the holes. Bring it on.
Your comment on the 70th 7 proves you do not understand the case he has made.
Eutychus, I hear your comment regarding fear tactics not being in the spirit of the gospel. You maybe confuse a healthy and an unhealthy fear. You cannot have a gospel that suits you. You do have also to deal wth the New Testament God who Hebrews states to be a 'consuming fire.' What is salvation in Christ if not an escape from a scary alternative?
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
prophetic years of 360 days
Where does the idea that a prophetic year is 360 days come from?
According to Wikipedia, a Hebrew year can have 353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days according to various complex rules which are intended to give you an average year of 365 and a bit days.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Eutychus:This basically allows you to arbitrarily start and stop all your prophetic counting when you feel like it, depending on how "functioning in the blessing of God" is defined
Actually, it is anything but arbitrary the more you look at it. you'd have to read him for yourself of course but there are all the periods through Judges where Israel falls into idolatry and is given over to enemies and then there is the 'captivity' period, and currently, we are in the 'times of the Gentiles' Luke talks about that coincides with the 'grace' in Christ being offered to all men through the gospel.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
It's that and more,Jamat.
The issue I have with schemas like Anderson's is that they are so reductionist. They are also so elastic that even if I came galloping through on my coach and four this minute - and I've got better things to do and domestic issues to deal with - then proponents would simply move the goalposts and start the 70 weeks from a other arbitary point that suited them - as Eutychus states - and bend things round to suit their next crack-pot theory.
I may take a pony and trap out for a ride later, or take you out in the Surrey with the fringe on top.
I've not unstabled my horses yet because of the formidable defences I see ranged against me. Rather it's because kicking over other people's sandcastles is somewhat mean and you'd only go and shift the goalposts and construct Anderson's risible schema somewhere else under the conviction that it's 'what the Bible says' and represents the 'plain meaning of scripture.'
Eutychus and I have both identified assumptions you are making in order to make the whole thing fit and you've ignored us.
That tells me you're likely to ignore any tricycle, coach and four or juggernaut that comes belting through your pre-millenialist and Dispensationalist literalism.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
prophetic years of 360 days
Where does the idea that a prophetic year is 360 days come from?
According to Wikipedia, a Hebrew year can have 353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days according to various complex rules which are intended to give you an average year of 365 and a bit days.
Get with the programme, Ricardus. It has to be 360 days to fit the time-frame Anderson sets for it.
Incidentally, Jamat, how do you know I've not read Anderson or people associated with that school of thinking?
I read and rejected this stuff a long, long time ago. The only reason it's in my radar at all now is that there are recalcitrant people around like your good self who remind me how flawed a system it all is.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
prophetic years of 360 days
Where does the idea that a prophetic year is 360 days come from?
According to Wikipedia, a Hebrew year can have 353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days according to various complex rules which are intended to give you an average year of 365 and a bit days.
Really? The Bible seems consistent in using 360 days for a year. In the ancient times it seems lunisolar years were the norm. Isaac Newton is quoted by Anderson as writing:
' all nations,before the just length of the solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon and years by the return of winter and summer, spring and autumn and in making their calendars they reckoned 30 days to a lunar month and 12 lunar months to a year'.
When the book of Daniel speaks of a seven, it is accepted generally that this is 7 years. Daniel's 70 th week is divided in half and one half is referred to as a time,times and half a time. Twice this same length of time is described as 42 months and twice as 1260 days. 1260 days are 42 months of 30 days. Using the Julian year, 3 and one half years would be 1278 days. The bible then must measures a 'prophetic' year as 360 days.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Gamaliel: incidentally, Jamat, how do you know I've not read Anderson or people associated with that school of thinking?
You do not engage with the material or seem to understand it. General comments of disparagement seem the norm but do prove me wrong. The use of a 360 day year by the Bible, was, I thought, generally accepted. Yet I find you think it is some kind of arbitrary choice?
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Actually, it is anything but arbitrary the more you look at it. you'd have to read him for yourself of course
I don't need to.
My point is simple.
On the one hand you have a mechanistic linear time scheme whereby various events have to match up exactly, to the day, with events prophesied by a "prophetic clock".
If the argument stopped there you'd have my attention, or at least half of it.
The problem is that alongside that, you have a hermeneutic which allows you to interrupt the "prophetic clock" according to events identified by that hermeneutic.
To make matters worse, the clock-stopper/starter, "Israel walking in the blessing of God" is elastic enough to give you a whole range of interpretive options. In effect you can interrupt the first interpretive grid whenever you feel like it. That rather destroys its force.
If anyone raises objections to the options exercised it gives rise to another whole level of arcane justifications for why those options were exercised, and so on. It gets more complex, not less; it's Occam's Razor in reverse. The increasing complexity required to support the hermeneutic makes it suspect.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
What is salvation in Christ if not an escape from a scary alternative?
I believe in the last judgement, but your summary is the tiniest part of salvation in my view, the worst bit to emphasise in preaching the Gospel, and a terrible source of motivation. The apostles preached the resurrection, not an "escape from a scary alternative". Yuk.
Preaching the gospel with the threat that "the door might be closed any second now" is neither effective nor true to the spirit of the Gospel, which is Good News, not "convert now before hellfire breaks out".
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Martin :60 I used to regard Him as such for decades. It would take a scientifically demonstrable prophecy to make me go back to that from as I see Him in Christ now.
Oh really? And preferably something peer reviewed and repeatable?
Here is Robert Anderson’s summation of Dan 9 24-27.
*The 70 weeks = 70 times 7 prophetic years of 360 days
* The weeks begin with the edict of Artaxerxes Longimanus’ 20th year noted in Nehemiah.
* Luke states that the Lord’s public ministry began in the 15 Th year of Tiberius Caesar..between August AD 28 and April AD 29
*the Passover of the crucifixion was therefore in AD 32 when Christ was betrayed on the night of the paschal supper, and put to death on the day of the Paschal feast.
* The period between Artaxerxes edict and the passion should be expected to be 483 years.
* The edict was issued in Jewish month of Nisan. Jews compute from 1st of the month so the 70 weeks begin 1st Nisan BC 445.
* In BC 445, the new moon by which the Passover was regulated was 13 March, 7hr,9 m am so 1st Nisan was March 14.
* An era of 69 weeks ore 483 prophetic years reckoned from 14 March 445 BC should accord with some event to satisfy the words, ‘unto Messiah the prince.’
* This could not be the nativity as this would be 33 years before Messiah’s death.
* Jesus final visit to Jerusalem was the crisis of his ministry. He accepted the acclamation of the crowd in contrast to previous admonition to disciples not to make him known. Luke 19:39,40. This was the point of irrevocable choice.
*Zechariah signalled that day “Rejoice greatly daughter of Zion” Zech 9:9. This was a day that satisfies the angel’s words in Daniel.. “unto Messiah the prince.”
* this date is ascertainable. Jesus went up to Jerusalem on 8Nisan, 6 days before Passover.
* in that year, 14 Nisan was on a Thursday so the 8 of Nisan was the preceding Friday. He spent the sabbath at Mary and Martha’s house and entered Jerusalem as recorded in the gospels on 10 Nisan.
* The Julian date of that 10 Nisan was Sunday, April 6 AD32.
* what then was the length of the period between the issuing of the decree to to rebuild Jerusalem and ‘Messiah the prince’?
Ie between 14 March BC 445 and 6 April AD 32?
* This interval contained exactly and to the very day, 173880 days or, 7 times 69 prophetic years of 360 days, in other words
The first 69 ‘weeks’ of Gabriel’s prophecy.
Seem forensic enough for you Martin60?
Not in the slightest.
And again.
That's more like it.
Don't you find it fascinating that no NT writer used it?
[ 06. January 2018, 11:08: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Aye. It looks like Jesus. So it's God.
I don't understand this answer.
I'd still like clarification of this, Martin. I can't understand if it's tongue in cheek and what it refers to.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Of course Eutychus, sorry for the delay, still going top down, with you shortly. And sorry for appearing gnomic. Not intended.
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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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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I wondered what you meant in your response to Eutychus too, Martin. I'm still wondering.
Meanwhile, @Jamat, what is it that I am failing to understand?
My 'take' is similar to that of Eutychus, that Anderson and commentators like him extrapolate all manner of numerical grids and frameworks from the scriptures that they can then move around in as elastic a way as best suits their purpose.
If you are going to accuse me of a lack of understanding then I could do the same thing in reverse by suggesting that you don't understand how prophetic and apocalyptic literature seems to 'work' and apply these things in a woodenly literal sense which gets increasingly convoluted as you attempt to make everything fit.
As someone whose job it is to teach literature, I'm genuinely surprised that you can't see that.
I've changed my mind about unstabling the horses and hitching them to my coach. I think I need a dirty great big Razor or pruning hook to hack my way through the thickets of your overgrown and overblown theology.
I wouldn't give Anderson the time of day. Why would anybody do so? It's got the hallmarks of whacko-jacko moveable feast numerology all over it.
Move along. There's nothing to see here apart from the kind of literalism we've all seen many times before.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The Bible seems consistent in using 360 days for a year. In the ancient times it seems lunisolar years were the norm.
With respect, I wouldn't treat Sir Isaac Newton as an authority on this question.
A lunisolar calendar is one where you use the phases of the moon to determine when each month starts, and then add intercalary months to ensure the months don't drift too far from the seasons with which they're associated. By definition the year length will average 365 and a bit days, because that's the average you need to prevent the seasons from drifting.
One lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. If you use 30-day months then it takes less than three years before the first day of the month is the Full Moon instead of the New Moon.
On the modern Hebrew calendar, the months have either 29 or 30 days according to set rules. Presumably in origin you would have just looked at the sky and thought 'New moon = new month'.
Likewise, if you use a 360-day year with no intercalation, then it takes less than 40 years before your midsummer festivals are in midwinter.
If you have contrary evidence that the ancient Hebrew year was 360 days I would like to see it.
quote:
When the book of Daniel speaks of a seven, it is accepted generally that this is 7 years. Daniel's 70 th week is divided in half and one half is referred to as a time,times and half a time. Twice this same length of time is described as 42 months and twice as 1260 days. 1260 days are 42 months of 30 days. Using the Julian year, 3 and one half years would be 1278 days. The bible then must measures a 'prophetic' year as 360 days.
a. Accepting for the sake of argument that all of these periods refer to the same event: If I were to say in one place that a bridge took three and a half years to build, and in another place that it took 1260 days to build, then the natural conclusion would be that three and a half years was the approximate figure and 1260 days the exact figure. The natural reading would emphatically not be that I was using my own private definition of a year.
b. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 1260 days comes from Revelation, not Daniel. Your scheme requires that a prophecy was given at the time of Belshazzar but the interpretive key that was required to understand it wasn't given until the time of John of Patmos, by which point 69 of the 70 weeks had already elapsed.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
FWIW I am very familiar with the 69 / 70 weeks thing in certain forms of evangelical eschatology and no, Ricardus I'm not suggesting that 'everything has already happened.'
I just don't believe that well-meaning but somewhat misguided commentators like Anderson were or are barking up the right tree.
I can understand their reaction against Higher Criticism and have a lot of sympathy with their aims, if not their approach.
In seeking to defend the integrity of the scriptures they end up in a kind of cross between a limbo dance and that 1960s game Twister in trying to make it all fit some nice, neat, cut and dried scheme.
They aren't alone. Plenty of Christian traditions act in a similar way over some issues or other.
The irony is that proponents of this kind of approach think they are defending scripture from the worst excesses of liberalism and modernism but only end up scoring an own goal.
They think they are simply arguing and extrapolating from the scriptures when all they are doing is rearranging the jig-saw pieces in ways that fit best with whatever framework they try to force it to fit.
It can be a beguiling pastime I'm sure but it doesn't get us very far.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sorry, life, including hoovering, supervened.
'Aye. It looks like Jesus. So it's God': Anything in the OT that doesn't look like Jesus is us (God the micromanaging Killer). And some of what looks like Him is still us on a good day, picking up the vibes. And some is… Him in clear.
In the late C8th BCE Micah gave a Jewish messianic prophecy that the Jews embraced. They still do. The prophecy wasn't accurate in Jesus for them. It still isn't. Furthermore it wasn't accurate in Jesus full stop either: 'Bethlehem... out of you will come... one who will be ruler over Israel'. Jesus didn't and doesn't reign over Israel. Until He does, we have no idea whether it was accurate or not from a Jewish or Christian POV.
So, it's very mainly your 'Or what?' at least Eutychus.
And it's CERTAINLY not '...simply a plot device by Matthew, putting the words of that prophecy in the mouths of the scribes to make the whole thing more exciting.'. That takes fast and loose beyond my comfort zone in to absurd Crossan-Spong territory. Of course the star was an angel or other supernatural epiphany. Comets don't land on stables. You can't follow one to the other.
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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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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
hosting
Jamat, you've been warned for C3 and have re-offended by accusing another poster of 'complacent atheism'. Even if someone happily self-describes as an atheist, complacent is an insult. If someone doesn't self-describe as an atheist, then to accuse them of atheism is an insult. The next step would usually involve an admin intervening.
Gamaliel, recalcitrant is an insult in terms of C3 and other posters may not be described as 'recalcitrant people'.
Everyone- while attacks on argument style are Ok be careful with 'You' statements which easily become personal accusations of bad faith/ignorance. Please be more careful and dial back any personal accusations. You all know where the Hell board is for that.
Thanks
Louise
Dead Horses Host
hosting off
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
prophetic years of 360 days
Where does the idea that a prophetic year is 360 days come from?
According to Wikipedia, a Hebrew year can have 353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days according to various complex rules which are intended to give you an average year of 365 and a bit days.
Let me wiki that for you ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
[ 06. January 2018, 14:17: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Sigh, sorry Eutychus. So, as it's minimal, an exquisite oracular detail, with no rampaging puppet empires, it could be the same God as in Jesus. I'd bet it was. In the Jungian sense I know it was. How it will be, we haven't the faintest idea.
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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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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
Just to be explicit, Jamat, Gamaliel, et al - you may consider the Hostly imperatives on this thread to be functionally divine. Such that either they will be complied with, or reality will be altered that questions of compliance will become moot.
You will get no further warnings.
-RooK
Admin
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And it's CERTAINLY not '...simply a plot device by Matthew, putting the words of that prophecy in the mouths of the scribes to make the whole thing more exciting.'. That takes fast and loose beyond my comfort zone in to absurd Crossan-Spong territory.
Thanks for the clarification.
I think I'm with you most of the way.
What you say here, though, confirms my suspicion that it's your comfort zone, rather than a particular school of textual criticism, that stops you applying the same logic to Matthew. I have every sympathy for that and can understand the reasons why (I think), but I still think that's a teeny bit inconsistent.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The Bible seems consistent in using 360 days for a year. In the ancient times it seems lunisolar years were the norm.
With respect, I wouldn't treat Sir Isaac Newton as an authority on this question.
A lunisolar calendar is one where you use the phases of the moon to determine when each month starts, and then add intercalary months to ensure the months don't drift too far from the seasons with which they're associated. By definition the year length will average 365 and a bit days, because that's the average you need to prevent the seasons from drifting.
One lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. If you use 30-day months then it takes less than three years before the first day of the month is the Full Moon instead of the New Moon.
On the modern Hebrew calendar, the months have either 29 or 30 days according to set rules. Presumably in origin you would have just looked at the sky and thought 'New moon = new month'.
Likewise, if you use a 360-day year with no intercalation, then it takes less than 40 years before your midsummer festivals are in midwinter.
If you have contrary evidence that the ancient Hebrew year was 360 days I would like to see it.
quote:
When the book of Daniel speaks of a seven, it is accepted generally that this is 7 years. Daniel's 70 th week is divided in half and one half is referred to as a time,times and half a time. Twice this same length of time is described as 42 months and twice as 1260 days. 1260 days are 42 months of 30 days. Using the Julian year, 3 and one half years would be 1278 days. The bible then must measures a 'prophetic' year as 360 days.
a. Accepting for the sake of argument that all of these periods refer to the same event: If I were to say in one place that a bridge took three and a half years to build, and in another place that it took 1260 days to build, then the natural conclusion would be that three and a half years was the approximate figure and 1260 days the exact figure. The natural reading would emphatically not be that I was using my own private definition of a year.
b. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 1260 days comes from Revelation, not Daniel. Your scheme requires that a prophecy was given at the time of Belshazzar but the interpretive key that was required to understand it wasn't given until the time of John of Patmos, by which point 69 of the 70 weeks had already elapsed.
@ hosts I appreciate your warning and apologise.
Ricardus:
I think when one googles the calendar issues, it is obvious that in the ancient world there were lots of adjustments for reasons we do not understand from this vantage point in time. The issue is not straightforward. You will be aware that the Bible has two places where the sun was said to have stopped, the long day of Joshua and Hezekiah's sundial.
The analysis of Sir Robert Anderson in the 19th century, does indeed seek to reconcile the 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 with actual historical events. Critics both here and elsewhere accuse him of arbitrarily starting his time clock to suit his time line to make the prophecy fit. That is one way, but I think a cynical way, of looking at it.
Anderson, though, begins with assumptions not shared by sceptics of the Bible record. He assumes that the Bible does have integrity of form..that it is God's revelation and that we can expect its details to line up with history. He was, I think, the first dispensationalist to make a credible attempt at such a reconciliation. His thinking is still accepted today by dispensationalist theologians like John Walvoord and Arnold Fructenbaum
As you can see from responses here, he is assumed by his critics as all dispensationalists are, to be creating a scenario to fit his theology rather than actually exegeting scripture which is what he claims to do. I think that this is the major criticism that needs addressing.
I would just make two points as a supporter of Anderson in view of your comments.
The first is to claim of the OT does actually support his assertion that the Bible, when it treats of a prophetic year, uses a year of 360 days. It seems that right from Genesis, in detailing the days of the flood, this actually was the case and as you point out right through to the book of revelation this is a consistent pattern in scripture. This is despite the fact that different civilisations throughout history have needed to adjust their calendars. To me at least, it makes sense that God has done this in the Bible in references to days years and months or there would be hopeless confusion. My link below has a clear message about this.
I think a second accusation is the more serious. Occam's razor is said to be violated. The schema is said to be made more complex to fit the details. Well, first, Occam's razor is not science. It suggests only that the simplest explanation is most likely the right one. However, the 70 week prophecy is so detailed and specific that there IS no 'most likely' explanation. Shipmates here cannot supply alternative 'simpler' explanations except to dismiss it on the basis of undermining the text by assuming, and that's all it is, that it is late dated or error ridden. This is the sceptical fall back position.
OK, fair enough but it is not mine. All I would say and the reason I post on this web site is that there may be some readers who are willing to consider a different view. If not, so be it.
Depends where you look
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Sure, and I'm not looking where you are looking, at highly partial and selective Protestant fundamentalist websites.
That one has the RCs down as 'The Beast' for instance, in almost 17th century fashion.
I'll admit that I don't take Anderson or people like him terribly seriously.
There is good reason for that. Eutychus had already outlined a few.
I could add some more.
I'm sorry but I have no time whatsoever for pre-millenialist Dispensationalism in any way, shape or form, although I'll readily accept that some more recent exponents have moved things on a bit from the numpty stuff I first encountered as a young Christian.
I'd certainly prefer some form of conservative theology to the Spongiform version but find it very hard to take fellas like Anderson very seriously.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, and I'm not looking where you are looking, at highly partial and selective Protestant fundamentalist websites.
That one has the RCs down as 'The Beast' for instance, in almost 17th century fashion.
I'll admit that I don't take Anderson or people like him terribly seriously.
There is good reason for that. Eutychus had already outlined a few.
I could add some more.
I'm sorry but I have no time whatsoever for pre-millenialist Dispensationalism in any way, shape or form, although I'll readily accept that some more recent exponents have moved things on a bit from the numpty stuff I first encountered as a young Christian.
I'd certainly prefer some form of conservative theology to the Spongiform version but find it very hard to take fellas like Anderson very seriously.
That’s fine Gamaliel I see no further point in exchanges with you over this. Live long and prosper. Trust health on all fronts is good.
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Well, it's not as if you are going to convert me to your eschatological schema - nor am I going to persuade you to adopt what I consider to be a more sensible one.
But there we are.
I wish you well and every blessing to you and yours. When the Kingdom comes in its fullness we won't any of us be checking proof-texts and verses to see which of us were closest to the way it all panned out.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I think when one googles the calendar issues, it is obvious that in the ancient world there were lots of adjustments for reasons we do not understand from this vantage point in time. The issue is not straightforward.
Absolutely. But what this incontrovertibly does is create plenty of wiggle room to make a an apparently precise timeline like Anderson's fit. quote:
You will be aware that the Bible has two places where the sun was said to have stopped, the long day of Joshua and Hezekiah's sundial.
And here's some more wiggle room. (I mean, I know these episodes come before Daniel, but the point is, acknowledging God can arbitrarily suspend time makes a nonsense of any argument based on a strictly linear, chronological progession of time. You can't invoke both and be consistent).
quote:
Critics both here and elsewhere accuse him of arbitrarily starting his time clock to suit his time line to make the prophecy fit.
That's not quite what I said. I said that allowing for the possibility of the "clock of prophecy" stopping and starting on the basis of a factor with a degree of subjectivity (when "Israel is walking in the blessing of God") is incompatible with trying to measure a linear, chronological progression of time.
Again, you can reasonably apply one of these ideas, but you can't sensibly apply both. It's just too easy to "stop the clock" as the need arises to make the chronology fit.
quote:
He assumes that the Bible does have integrity of form
What does that mean exactly, to your mind? quote:
I think a second accusation is the more serious. Occam's razor is said to be violated. The schema is said to be made more complex to fit the details.
That's not what I said either. I said that when objections to the schema were raised, the answers to the objections became ever more complex than the initial objection.
This can be seen, as referred to above, in our discussions about the Rapture. In response to the objection that Scripture, especially the NT, presents us with one people of God, your particular take on eschatology explains there are multiple categories, all obtaining salvation in different ways, which all have to be explained by complex cross-referencing and speculation, and in addition all these different categories have to inhabit different sectors of the New Heaven and the New Earth, come to the New Jerusalem only on visits, and so on.
You can qualify Occam's Razor how you like, but such an approach seems to me to be likely to generate more confusion than enlightenment. Inasmuch as it makes understanding the Bible ever more complex, I think it runs counter to the promise of the New Covenant. Put bluntly, that way madness lies.
quote:
Shipmates here cannot supply alternative 'simpler' explanations except to dismiss it on the basis of undermining the text by assuming, and that's all it is, that it is late dated or error ridden. This is the sceptical fall back position.
I disagree. I've constantly reiterated that I have an open (and largely uninformed) mind about OT dating. And I don't qualify Scripture as "error-ridden".
As I understand it even you accept that just because the Bible refers to four corners of the earth does not mean it is in error because of its use of that metaphor. I am however convinced that plenty of errors can arise by not reading it as it was intended to be read.
I'm not going to try and find out how to fix my car or washing machine by looking in the Bible; neither do I expect to be able to open it and discern a 1:25,000 scale map of all history. That doesn't mean I believe it's "error-ridden". That is a mischaracterisation of my position.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
I said that allowing for the possibility of the "clock of prophecy" stopping and starting on the basis of a factor with a degree of subjectivity (when "Israel is walking in the blessing of God") is incompatible with trying to measure a linear, chronological progression of time.
Again, you can reasonably apply one of these ideas, but you can't sensibly apply both. It's just too easy to "stop the clock" as the need arises to make the chronology f
You assume that he does this arbitraily for his convenience. If you are open minded, I suggest you read him. He is very specific on this point. You may not be convinced but quite definite criteria are applied.
You evidently misunderstand the application of this. There is no contradiction. He does not stop the clock when the need arises to suit his theological presumptions though like any researcher he does work from assumptions which he is testing, but rather, in those OT periods when Israel falls from grace. These periods are well signalled, eg, previous to the time of Gideon. The analogy of ‘time on,time off’ in sports games is apt. However the umpire in this case is other worldly. If these times can be ascertained, the years to measure are simply those in between them..no inconsistency.
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
6 quote:
I'm not going to try and find out how to fix my car or washing machine by looking in the Bible; neither do I expect to be able to open it and discern a 1:25,000 scale map of all history. That doesn't mean I believe it's "error-ridden". That is a mischaracterisation
I only know you from what you write here and you seem to me to be a knowledgeable and honest person on that basis so I do apologise if you feel mischaracterised. One can only respond to points that strike one in a lengthy post.
Neither am I going to fix a utility that way but this is not about fixing utilities it is about assumptions that the Bible is flawed as to fact and history where it touches these things.
If one assumes there are anachronisms, scribal errors etc, or that it is a Bronze Age text written by liars who alter dating, as many critics do then I think you cannot see it as God’s message, you will be sitting in judgement on it. You will only learn from it what you choose to. You selfish human with all kinds of possible motives remain in control of what you let in and reject regarding Bible truth.
Now I do not make any assumptions about others in saying this but I am currently convinced that it has integrity and that the prophecy it contains is explicable and relevant to humankind.
Note: this is not to say that I am right necessarily in my current beliefs about it but the principle of its truth is for me a non negotiable and over 40 odd years and many arguments, It is clear to me that most Bible trashing, is an excuse to be free from the moral strictures it imposes. I want to behave in a certain way contrary to Biblical injunctions? No problem! The Bible has got so many errors after all! This is often what one is up against in discussion about it. Morality is the elephant in the room.
Sorry about the rant.
[ 06. January 2018, 21:42: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I can understand why you might want to rant but from where I'm coming from it seems one that is misdirected and misplaced.
Nobody here has said that the scriptures were written by Bronze Age 'liars' who altered dates.
If there are later dates for parts of Isaiah or for Daniel that doesn't betoken bad faith or deceit on the part of the authors, it simply means that these texts accumulated over time as was a common pattern for ancient writings.
It doesn't obviate the import of the message or impugn the integrity of the writers. It's only a problem if one insists on scripture behaving in a particular way - a way favoured by mid to late 19th century conservative / fundamentalist (using the word in its original non-pejorative sense) commentators who were reacting - quite understandably - to the excesses of the Higher Critics.
It's sometimes been said that liberal 19th and 20th century scholars saw themselves staring back up out the waters of the bottom of the well when they peered down in 'quest of the historical Jesus.'
I have a lot of sympathy with that view. They read the scriptures in the light of their own predelictions.
They saw what they wanted to see.
Ricardus here has tried to argue that there is a third way, that to consider the findings of recent scholarship isn't necessarily to topple into liberalism and apostasy.
I would agree. I may sympathise with the motives and intentions of someone like Anderson but I'm afraid, like Eutychus, I find such arguments convoluted and unconvincing.
Equally, I find the conclusions of people like Karen Armstrong somewhat convenient and contrived.
I wouldn't accuse either of bad faith - but they each, inevitably, have an agenda.
As long as we are aware of that, fine.
The reason that I - and others like me - don't subscribe to a pre-millenialist or Dispensationalist viewpoint isn't down to closed-mindedness in the face of incontrovertible facts, rather it's because we have actually examined the material and come to a different conclusion.
It's not a 'cover' so we can elide this, that or the other scriptural injunction at will.
'I believe in a late date for Daniel, that means I can cheat on my tax returns or have extramarital affairs ...'
FWIW the IVP commentary I have here - far from a liberal one - states that there is no firm consensus on whether the 69 weeks fit neatly with the events of Christ's life. It doesn't dismiss it as a possibility, but neither does it present it as an article of faith and worthy of all acceptance.
That doesn't mean it doesn't accept the Messianic import of Daniel.
Just saying ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Jamat, to go back quite a bit, I can't find where you set out what you would define as scripture. Does it include what we Anglicans would call either the Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical works, but which Catholics would include completely? Then there's the range of texts, various Gospels and the like, which some of the Oriental Orthodox churches would include, but not by the Eastern Orthodox or any of the Western ones. And if you don't include every book which some church would include, how do you draw the line?
As to Anderson - you say he had a good reputation as a policeman as well as a theologian. IIRC, he was sacked as a deputy commissioner or some such position because he was hopeless at pursuing the Fenians, and his time trying to investigate Jack the Ripper had the grand effect of muddying the waters and probably making the offences insoluble.
You may think otherwise, but I don't think I'm alone in finding his theological writings little more than an attempt to twist all sorts of facts and figures, particularly dates, to suit his own purposes. Others above have pointed out some of the basic flaws he has fallen into.
But if you like that sort of exercise, try this: the life of each Phoenix was 1,460 years. Think about it and see what you come up with.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You assume that he does this arbitraily for his convenience. (...) He does not stop the clock when the need arises to suit his theological presumptions though like any researcher he does work from assumptions which he is testing, but rather, in those OT periods when Israel falls from grace.(...)If these times can be ascertained, the years to measure are simply those in between them..no inconsistency.
He may well not set out to do so arbitrarily, but the problem I'm trying to point out is that "those OT periods when Israel falls from grace" is a flexible enough concept to allow him some latitude.
I'd be willing to bet that one or both of two things are true: a) there is at one tendentious instance of "Israel falling from grace" in his list (and/or at least one that is left out) b) there is at least one for which the date cannot be assigned with certainty.
It's like saying "I'll time this race but stop whenever the crowd aren't cheering". The elapsed seconds during timing will no doubt be accurate enough but the problem is, how do you define, to the second, when the crowd starts and stops cheering? These are two incompatible systems. quote:
it is about assumptions that the Bible is flawed as to fact and history where it touches these things.
No, it's (largely) about differences of opinion as to how the Bible touches fact and history. It is no fault of the text if we're reading it wrong.
Stating that Isaiah prophesied a "young girl" would give birth does not make the Bible "wrong" if Isaiah (or God's) intent was never to provide a pixel-accurate predictive prophecy, any more than it is "wrong" to say of someone who dies at a ripe old age "he had a good innings" even if he never played cricket. And so on.
quote:
I am currently convinced that it has integrity
The fact that I have different criteria for integrity doesn't mean I believe it has none.
If you could find it within yourself to accept that it's at least possible to be a sincere Christian, have a different view of Scripture to you, and still believe Scripture has integrity, it would take a lot of the hostly-ire-inducing heat out of this debate. quote:
It is clear to me that most Bible trashing, is an excuse to be free from the moral strictures it imposes. I want to behave in a certain way contrary to Biblical injunctions? No problem! The Bible has got so many errors after all! This is often what one is up against in discussion about it. Morality is the elephant in the room.
I can't see anybody arguing that here.
What is more, my experience of getting on for 50 years of belief ( ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) ) is that a "conservative" or "fundamentalist" view of Scripture is absolutely no guarantee of moral integrity.
This can easily be seen from the seemingly endless stream of hypocritical evangelical leaders who condemn loudly from the pulpit the very sins they themselves are guilty of.
For much of my adult life I was led to believe that "sound" teachers and preachers embodied the upright theological morals and honesty they preached and could instinctively be relied on, in contrast to wicked liberals. My experience, which has cost me dearly in my own life, is that they cannot.
It would be nice if individuals' morality broke down so straightforwardly along the lines of the doctrine one professes to hold, but it doesn't. My criterion for assessing a theological argument these days sets a lot of store by the intellectual honesty with which the argument itself is made, over and above whether it comes to the "right" conclusions.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And it's CERTAINLY not '...simply a plot device by Matthew, putting the words of that prophecy in the mouths of the scribes to make the whole thing more exciting.'. That takes fast and loose beyond my comfort zone in to absurd Crossan-Spong territory.
Thanks for the clarification.
I think I'm with you most of the way.
What you say here, though, confirms my suspicion that it's your comfort zone, rather than a particular school of textual criticism, that stops you applying the same logic to Matthew. I have every sympathy for that and can understand the reasons why (I think), but I still think that's a teeny bit inconsistent.
Ah go on, you can drive a coach and horses through it surely? And my response will be the same. It's the Jesus effect. It's the pathos of the Jesus effect which drives the logos in my rhetoric. Jesus. The rock in the pond. 'Matthew' wasn't the even more elusive 'Daniel'. They are separated by two centuries of turbulent, swirling cultural evolution and above all by Jesus. There is no comparison between Daniel and Matthew, between the OT and the New. Between the yearning of priest class pre-Christian, exilic-post-exilic Jews for a national deliverer and the somewhat more egalitarian shepherds, fishermen, tradesmen, a tax collector, a light fingered possible former terrorist, a doctor and an array of women of all classes and the disabled who one way or another witnessed God incarnate and were involved in his chronicling.
In their seething Caravaggio pre-Enlightenment yet most illuminated humanity, the Mark, Matthew, Luke and the latter pair's mate Quelle and utterly separate John schools, with all their agendas and takes to different audiences decades after the Chicxulub of Jesus hit the Gulf, in their confusion there is utter authenticity. And honesty. They weren't going to make stuff up like Herod's scribes knowing about Bethlehem, that's just wasted effort, far too contrived, utterly unnecessary. It's obvious the scribes would have known that anyway. Shave it. Conspiracy theories never work because it assumes people know what they're doing, that they are preternaturally competent, that lone genius works. Nope. This mob of decent gobsmacked people did not have the massive resources of the state religion to cook the books of Isaiah and Daniel in the interests of the deep state.
Where's the inconsistency? There is no comparison.
How did the sermon go?
[ 07. January 2018, 10:24: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Jamat, I too agree that there is integrity in the scriptural writings - but I don't see why that necessitates an insistence that there was only one writer in instances where it seems likely that there may have been more.
But we've been around that several times now ...
I too am currently convinced that the prophecies are 'explicable and relevant to humankind.'
They can be explicable and relevant if interpreted in a Preterist, Historicist or Futurist way.
The trick, of course, is to know when to apply each or when to mix and match or merge them.
That's not an admission of defeat or a hand-waving refusal to engage with the issues, rather it's a considered opinion having been round the block a few times ... not 50 years as in Eutychus's case nor 40 in years but 30+ years - getting on for 40 soon years soon ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I've been engaged with this stuff for nearly 50. Thank God I'll know sooner than any of you probably. Although my daughter just told me in Dutch that I have a reason to stick around. Most inspiring.
Oh and Jamat, what is this morality that I don't want, that goes hand in hand with God the micromanaging, empire puppeteering, baby drowning Killer?
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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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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
One suspects it's a reference to another Dead Horse.
But let's let sleeping equines lie.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
How did the sermon go?
OK. PM me if you want to brush up on your French ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
So things get more reliable, honest, and accurate the nearer we get to the meteor crater of Jesus and/or as culture progressed. I suppose that's a fresh way of saying "the Old is by the New explained".
Now where does that leave Revelation?
[ 07. January 2018, 15:42: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The first is to claim of the OT does actually support his assertion that the Bible, when it treats of a prophetic year, uses a year of 360 days. It seems that right from Genesis, in detailing the days of the flood, this actually was the case
Again, I think the most natural reading of that passage from Genesis is that the ark landed on Ararat before the end of the 150 days - when the waters had abated to the level of the mountain-tops, but not the level of the plains.
A 'standard' Hebrew year could not be 360 days, because that is incompatible with the celebration of the feast of Tabernacles, as described by Leviticus 23: 'Now, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival of the Lord, lasting seven days'. So the seventh month is always round about harvest-time - which would not be the case with a 360-day year.
In fact this is obvious from Anderson's own schema. You start on 1 Nisan and end on 10 Nisan. But on a 360-day year, 173,330 days after 1 Nisan would also be 1 Nisan.
Anderson's schema therefore requires Daniel's readers to understand he meant not what they would mean by a year, but a special kind of year whose existence has to be inferred from an apparent discrepancy in a completely unrelated story about Noah.
quote:
I think a second accusation is the more serious. Occam's razor is said to be violated.
To me the problem is that if your interpretative framework allows a wide spectrum of interpretations, then you need to build a very strong case to show that any particular interpretation is correct.
For example: apparently the prophecy 'After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing, and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary' is fulfilled by the events of Palm Sunday. But the only point of commonality between Palm Sunday and that verse is the presence of the Messiah - and even then, that is dependent on 'anointed' in v26 referring to the Messiah but in v25 referring to an earthly ruler.
But if that is all that's required to show an event is a fulfilment of a prophecy, then practically any event could fulfil it. For example, if we assume 'regular' years instead of 360-day years, we get to AD 39, during which year (from Wikipedia):
- Agrippa I, king of Judaea, successfully accuses Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, of conspiracy against Caligula. Antipas is exiled and Agrippa receives his territory.
- Caligula orders that a statue of himself be placed in the temple in Jerusalem. The governor of Syria, Publius Petronius, who is responsible for erecting the statue, faces mass demonstrations by Jews of the region and manages to delay construction of the statue until the death of Caligula in AD 41.
Surely either of those events could be seen to fulfil the prophecy equally well?
Anderson's schema makes Daniel either vague or obscurantist. By contrast, in a historicist interpretation the author's meaning would have been plain to his readers because it would recall events that had only just happened.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
E.
I follow Capitaine Monique and her helmsman Guirec Soudée avec mon Franglais abominable sur Visagelivre.
Revelation? That's Jesus. He is the revelation of God by country miles, by orders of magnitude.
And He never said a word or three ("That's me, that.") about Isaiah 7 or Daniel 9.
[ 07. January 2018, 16:52: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Yes, of course. But how does the book of Revelation fit into your meteor-crater-and-cultural-advances-make-everything-around-the-time-of-Jesus-crystal-clear framework?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
As for Revelation, The Book Of, I haven't the faintest idea compared with all I used to know.
And Ricardus. Masterful.
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Crossed in the post. Where do I claim the Rock in the pond is crystal clear? Cuh. Fuh. We can't even say WHAT He was coherently (a person or Person with natures and wills and that). We've got what He said and did and none of us agrees on what that means unless we've walked to a meeting of minds by education and experience. So I certainly don't expect any of His contemporaries to make any sense at all. Not when they go off on one, as we say round 'ere. And John of Patmos certainly went off on one. And it may WELL have been a fully immersive movie by the Holy Spirit for him and his audience. I'm not his audience.
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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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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Crossed in the post. Where do I claim the Rock in the pond is crystal clear?
I didn'y say you did. But you seem to be arguing that the records about him are more reliable, and the odds of the supernatural happening higher, the closer one is to him in time. quote:
So I certainly don't expect any of His contemporaries to make any sense at all.
No, but you expect them to be reliable witnesses so far as they are able. You expect Matthew to be recording the views of the scribes on prophecy accurately and our record of that record to be reliable while whatever Isaiah(s) or Daniel(s) were up to is completely hermetic to us. quote:
Not when they go off on one, as we say round 'ere. And John of Patmos certainly went off on one. And it may WELL have been a fully immersive movie by the Holy Spirit for him and his audience. I'm not his audience.
Who was it who said he had clearly drunk too much retsina whilst waiting for one of the Greek islands' notoriously late ferries? Alright. But we value what he wrote nonetheless, don't we?
If we are not somewhere, somehow also his audience, why accept the canon at all? Why bother passing on the Bible as preserved by the Church down the ages at all? Why not just use Earthsea novels or Tolkien instead?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Crystal: Aye, closer is good. So 30-40 year after He were resurrected, John of Patmos had his trip, not a problem. It's a work of genius whatever.
The Expected Reliables: Aye, as expected. What the older schools were up to was politics; propaganda swathed in cabalistic magic.
Audience value: We're inheritors, beneficiaries of heirlooms that need careful handling. The LEAST said about them the better in some ways. Apart from as art, literature by our spiritual ancestors. What use they are beyond that, the arcana - including takes on atonement, weird stuff like the harrowing of hell - beyond the reporting, I've no idea.
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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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Hi Ricardus
In denying that the Prophetic year is 360 days, you are contradicting major expositors. If you are really interested and wish to investigate it further, I suggest you look at Anderson who Pentecost who also quotes others who have thought it through thoroughly but suffice it here that Leviticus 23 does not constitute a rebuttal and Genesis 7 and 8 are conclusive. The flood began on the seventeenth day of the second month 7:11and ended on the seventeenth day of the seventh month 8:4. This is exactly 5 months also said to be 150 days. Quick arithmetic tells you these months have to be 30 days and 12 of them 360 days.
quote:
Surely either of those events (Caligula’s statue etc) could be seen to fulfil the prophecy equally well?
Anderson's schema makes Daniel either vague or obscurantist
This is simply nonsense. Once again, if interested, I suggest you investigate further. If you are not and in point scoring mode, then there is no point in further interactions.
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