bertot: Good luck reading all this stuff. You asked! You might want to print it out and waste some paper. Ha!
Does God have a personality at all and if he does what is it exacally?
You are asking me this question? How can I possibly describe in exact human terms the precise personality and exact nature of that personality of the Supreme Natural God? This Deity does not have an anthropomorphic personality. I could employ natural metaphors in a poem, but if the Hebrew Eden Narrative is rejected due to its uses of these natural metaphors, then what good would my poem be? If the terminology, “The Spirit of Life”, is not good enough for you, then I am running out of metaphorical alternative descriptions.
Your greatest assumption AM is that a God who created all of this could not at the sametime do anything at any other point with it as he sees fit for his purposes.
When God alters creation through miracles in Reality”today”then belief will be suspended and Reality will reign true. Simply because some supernatural event is described in a book, that does not make what is written in that book a true historical event. In fact, due to the supernatural nature of the literary described event, it is most likely that the literary described supernatural event is not of a true historical nature.
As I have pointed out before and to which you have nerver replied, you believe in his influence in the Eden narrative and OT scriptures by saying you dont believe in luck or chance concerning them, which implies you believe in a form of inspiration, yet you reject the possibility that God could alter or intervine in these natural process.
I do not reject the possibility that God could alter or intervene in the natural process. When God alters and intervenes in the natural process today, belief will be suspended and Reality will reign true. As yet, in the modern world, that has not happened. Muslims, Christians, and Jews are blowing each other up trying to prove that their conception of Deity is the right one. When God intervenes and alters this ridiculous behavior by making Himself and His Wishes clear to all, then there will be no question, no belief, no faith involved in our decision making process.
When I am awed by a particular fact”e.g. The Hebrew Eden Narrative still exists today; I am reading it. The Hebrew Tanakh still exists today; I am reading it”my sense of awe does not immediately lead me to assume supernatural divine intervention. My imagination works at least as good as yours does, and I am sure I could imagine all sorts of wonderfully divine and supernatural scenarios that would enable my awe to produce any number of motion pictures. However, I find no need to allow my imagination to interpret my awe of a particular fact in that fashion. Reality is quite enough for me, for Reality itself fills me with awe, respect, and reverence of that which enables me to exist at all. The Sublime Mystery of Life in the Cosmos fills me with both Joy and Terror”Joy as I feel the wind on my face as I inhale fresh mountain air; and Terror as I realize how small and fragile I am as a thunder storm breaks above me, and the wind that was so refreshing a moment ago threatens my very survival.
I do not know how else to reply to you, to share with you my intimate relationship with the Sublime Mystery of Life”The Supreme Natural God.
Why is one possible and the other not? Why is one the supernatural and the other is not. Or are you again changing your positon on Gods influence in the Eden narrative. Did he have anyhing to do with the use of Natural metaphors or not? or did the humans that composed it just choose them because this is what they expierenced?
The fact that the Hebrew Eden Narrative exists at all is a fact, a reality, a truth in and of itself. A supernatural event described in a book does not make that supernatural event a historical fact or reality of the past. That is why one is “unbelievable” and the other “does not have to be believed because it exists.”
I have not been changing my position regarding “God’s influence in the Hebrew Eden Narrative.” I called the Hebrew Eden Narrative an inspired piece of poetic, proverbial literature that employs the Hebrew term for “Deity” as it describes the continuous creation of all generations of humankind. Some of what is conveyed within the Hebrew Eden Narrative the author could not have experienced, in my opinion. I am in awe of what I encounter as I research the Hebrew Eden Narrative. That “awe”, however, does not immediately morph into imaginary supernatural nonsense. When God comes and tells me face to face that He inspired the Hebrew Eden Narrative, you will be one of the first people I tell. But why would you believe me? I guess I better ask God to go tell you too. That way you won’t have to take my word for anything.
And as I pointed out before to which you have not replied, I suppose the best way to approach Gods Word is simply to pick out of it what I like and reject all those things that dont agree with my position, or to disregard those things that appear impossible?
I have never suggested that anyone should “reject” any part of the Hebrew Old Testament, or the Greek New Testament. An ancient piece of literature that describes the Supernatural events of God intervening in the affairs of men, are in fact literary Supernatural events. A supernatural event that occurs today, and that is witnessed and/or experienced by millions, would still be regarded as impossible and therefore suspect by the millions of people who did not witness and/or experience the supernatural event themselves; that is the nature of a “supernatural” event. However, should a supernatural event occur for everyone at the same time, the event would be regarded as unusual, but would no longer be subject to belief for it would now be a part of our collective historical reality.
If you will not see how this works, lets approach it from this standpoint. If we need to "knock ourselves in the head", everytime we come across a miracle or the supernatual in the scriptures, then this would imply that the PEOPLE or HUMANS that wrote this could not be trusted on just about anything else ethier. Certainly if they fabricated stories to support thier claims, then nothing else they said could be trusted either. Think about it logically AM.
You Got It. Why should anything human beings say be trusted? I don’t ask anyone to merely “trust” what I say or write. So you are suggesting that if someone wrote something that does not make “apparent sense” in one place everything that they convey should therefore be rejected. That does not make sense. Why not just say, “Wow, that particular statement doesn’t make apparent sense; I wonder what the author is trying to convey here, in light that so many other aspects of what the author has conveyed appear to make perfect sense. Why don’t we study, examine and research what the author is trying to convey?” That’s how I approach everything I read.
Reading, studying, and examining ancient literary documents with a “critical eye” does not mean that one is “criticizing” the ancient literary document. If an ancient human being who lived on this planet long before I arrived claims that what he is conveying is what God wants all humanity to do, I question that claim due to the fact that the author is writing this God-inspired literary document at a time when the reproduction of and distribution of any literary document by human means was severely limited and in some cases nonexistent. Therefore, the question, “Why would an all powerful God choose to communicate His nature and wishes to all humanity in such an ineffective fashion?” It is my opinion that God would not! But, that is just my opinion. However, just because the author of this ancient literary document has made this “supernatural claim” does not mean that the ancient literary document as a whole should be “rejected.” Quite the contrary, this ancient author was living in a world I will never personally experience, and what this ancient author has conveyed may have made perfect sense at the time and place the document was composed. To achieve a glimpse of that ancient world this ancient literary document should be respected, examined, explored, and researched with a clear and critical eye.
quote:
AM wrote: You have most certainly got that right! The problem is, you see, I know the difference between "fact, truth, reality" and "imaginary human nonsense." Reality has never deceived anyone. The human imagination, on the other hand, is quite proficient in the art of deception.
If you were an athiest making this statement in might make sense. you are not, atleast I dont think you are. Your perception of reality is WARPED. You believe in a God that can create all of this but limit him to your perception of him. This is not warrented. If God exists and can created then he most certainly can intervine, halt, suspend, change, and manipulate these laws to fullfil his purposes. this makes perfect logical sense.
Not in a book. Not just in human words. I think you have human words confused with “Reality.” God does whatever God wants to do. I guess that is one of the perks of being a Supreme Being. Words in a book claiming this or that does not automatically make this or that true. If that makes my perception of reality “warped” then so be it. Human words are human words; they may or may not depict “reality.” If human words depict reality, the reality is a fact and the words are true to that fact. If human words depict imaginary, supernatural realms, then, by definition, those human words are illustrating fiction.
When God starts halting, suspending, changing, and manipulating the laws of nature to fulfill His purposes today, then what God halts, suspends, changes and manipulates will not be mere human words, but will be real, actual, experiential facts of our everyday reality on planet earth as we live it.
That is the difference between “Reality” and “words.”
When you "EMPLOY the Hebrew and English words and definitions" of the OT, do you imagine away the miracles and the supernatural, or do you faithfully interpret them as legitimate miracles. Are you warrented in explaining them away as metaphorical, in conjuction with what appears to be realiy at the present time.?
To me, words that describe miracles and the supernatural are not in and of themselves “miracles and supernatural events.” They are words describing events that have no place in the reality that I personally exist within. Just because someone claims that these particular words “are the words or Word of God”, that particular literary claim in and of itself does not make it so. I say, “Prove it.” However, I do not merely attempt to “explain away” the miracles and supernatural events that are described in an ancient literary text, but rather I do my level best to comprehend what the ancient author is conveying. Sometimes I have found that certain expressions of unrealistic events were, in my opinion, riddles, metaphorical, poetic, and proverbial. Other expressions, in my opinion, turned out to be cultural mannerisms; for example, 1st Samuel 18:10:
rucha >elohiym ra0ah >el-sha>ul=
spirit of God it is evil upon Shaul (BHS); the KJV reads, “the evil spirit from God came upon Saul.” That is to say, Saul became jealously afraid of David; that jealous fear being conveyed as “the spirit of God that is evil.” Then there are those expression that as far as I can tell have absolutely no relation to the only reality I know. I do not reject them, I merely refer to them in terms that denote the fact that such expressions are outside and/or beyond the realm of rational thought, reasonable discourse, and that they trigger my disbelief.
The problem with weeding out this or that reduces the Word of God to the words of men and unreliable ones at that.
First of all, reducing the “Word of God” to the “words of men” does not automatically make those human words “unreliable.” That is your view, not mine. My view is that there are no words that should be blindly trusted as being actual, factual, or true. If human words honestly describe that which is actual, factual and true, what is actual, factual and true will confirm that what the words convey is accurate. If human words describe an ethereal, supernatural, or fanciful realm then there is no way of confirming what the human words convey; that is to say, there is not territory to confirm the accuracy of the map.
If the stories are imaginary then they are no different than any other account of creation offered by any class or civilization that has ever come into existence.
I never said that the stories in the Hebrew Old Testament were imaginary. In my opinion, some of the content in some of the stories in the Hebrew Old Testament appear to be “imaginary” in what they convey, but that remains to be proven. And, even if an entire narrative is proven to be “imaginary” that does not mean that it should be rejected. Some ancient author took time out of his life to convey what is written, and by doing so has changed the consciousness of a large portion of humanity for thousands of years. Such a narrative, “imaginary” or not, should be respected, studied, and examined if for no other reason than to find the roots of human consciousness.
I challenge you to show how the Eden narrative is any better than anyother creation account without the aid of inspiration.
Although I must admit that I am not sure what you mean by”“any better than””if you mean what I think you mean, then these three (3) “Biblical Translation-Eden” threads have been dedicated to your above mentioned challenge.
The Hebrew Eden Narrative was composed thousands of years ago in the ancient land of Canaan-Phoenicia-Israel-Judea {The Holy Land). In Gen. 2:5 the author describes the purpose for which humans were to be created, “to till the ground,” and in Gen. 3:23 that purpose is fulfilled when they are sent from the Garden In Eden “to till the ground from which they were taken.” It certainly appears as though the author was saying that these human beings were to become “farmers.” According to modern archeologists and anthropologists the earliest evidence of human farming is found on Mt. Carmel and the Judean Hills in the ancient land of Canaan-Phoenicia-Israel-Judea {The Holy Land). This ancient farming culture dates back to around 10,500 BC, and is called “the Natufian Neolithic Culture.” The name “Natufian” is derived from the Hebrew verb
nata0 which means “
to plant” as well as
to establish. This verb is employed in Gen. 2:8 where the Eden Narrative describes God
planting/establishing a garden in Eden.
quote:
Israeli Foreign Ministry: “The Natufian culture presents with the clearest evidence of the transition from Paleolithic hunter-gatherer cultures to the Neolithic urbanized cultures, ”from plant-gathering and animal-hunting to plant-growing and animal-domestication’.”
According to my research the above quote from the Israeli Foreign Ministry describes precisely what the Hebrew Eden Narrative conveys by employing riddles, metaphors, and allegorical context consistent with Hebrew Wisdom Literature.
Ofcourse when you ackowledge inspiration, as you have, you are implying the supernatural, no matter how you try and define supernatural.
Human inspiration is a part of the Sublime Mystery of Life on planet earth. However, just because inspiration is part of this Sublime Mystery that does not make human inspiration a “supernatural” event. In my opinion, you appear to have a relatively narrow minded fixation regarding the “supernatural”. There are many awesome mysteries that are all part of the natural order.
How does the Eden narrative correspond to reality without a belief in God in the process? Without accepting inspiration in the process the narrative is nothing more than a fanciful human perspective about the existence of things, no better or worse than anyother.
The Hebrew Eden Narrative conveys what the author intended it to convey. I am indeed thankful that the Hebrew Eden Narrative did not become lost to the past. It is a Sublime Mystery to me why the Hebrew Eden Narrative did not become lost to history. With all the Jews have endured for thousands of years how they managed to keep any of their ancient literature in tact is amazing to me; particularly since the Greek Septuagint was created. But they did. So I am thankful.
For many people the Eden Narrative”the myth of Adam & Eve” is no better or worse than any other ancient myth. However, I do not see the Hebrew Eden Narrative as an ancient myth. I perceive the Hebrew Eden Narrative as an ancient Canaanite/Hebrew Wisdom Poem/Proverb. I am of the opinion that the Hebrew Eden Narrative may well have been either written by, or inspired by the Neolithic Nata {planting} Culture many thousands of years before the Canaanites and/or Hebrews ever existed. I could be wrong, but to me, the evidence is there and quite compelling. The world view and the conception of God held by these ancient peoples was quite different that your Christian supernatural conception of Deity. These ancient peoples lived at a time and in a place that we can barely even imagine today, and that only our National and State Parks can now only give us a glimpse of. I am lucky because I live in the Rocky Mountains on a small ranch where unadulterated nature exists right outside my door. The parables and metaphors employed by the author of the Hebrew Eden Narrative still exist as part of my everyday reality.
I challenge you to show why "inspiration" is not the supernatural. if Moses did not recieve the 10 commandments as the scriputres say he did, then they are nothing more than a Human subjective perspective of a class of people.
If you would do some honest, objective research regarding the contents of your English Holy Bible you would find out that a great deal of what you think regarding your English Holy Bible has been nothing more than a product of your own socialization. Moses did not receive the 10 commandments as the scriptures say he did. But you don’t want to hear that. Actually, the 10 commandments were first composed in the Book of Deuteronomy {Heb.
dabariym=
words} which was composed during the civil war between Judea in the south and Israel in the north. But again, you really don’t want to hear any of that. If you are interested, do some research and find out.
As I have stated above, human inspiration is a vital aspect of the Sublime Mystery of Life, but that does not make “inspiration” and the “supernatural” synonymous.
Just reading all of this is going to be a problem. Writing it was a all-day affair. Maybe you can print it out and then ask just one or two specific questions at a time. That way we can both respond to each other without laboring ourselves too terribly.
Let me say, though, I am indeed enjoying our dialogue.
All the best,
Ger
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