The "Circle of the Earth"

uh, this whole bit about riding around in a flying saucer. you trying to make the picture isaiah present -- one of a flat earth, with a solid domed heavens upon which god sits -- into a more naturalistic-sounding god-in-spaceship-in-orbit image. on the contrary, simple. you have nothing to offer. you just drag discussions off-topic.i started off in this thread by translating the verse myself. i then talked about the imagery it presents and how it lines up with genesis and external sources, and how it repeats sounds in hebrew for poetic effect.you have brought up UFOs, and retreated through ad-hoc mental gymnastics. no. it's not. have you read ezekiel? i think not. did god literally resurrect a field of several thousand skeletons, as ezekiel discribes? no -- it's a vision, one of coded metaphors. the field of dead is judah in exile, and their resurrection is their return. did seven sickly cows really eat seven fat cows in genesis 41? no, it was pharaoh's vision of seven good years followed by seven bad. ezekiel 1 is a vision. and it is not the only way god appears to mankind. why, just look at how he appeared to abraham: as a man, at the door to abraham's tent. look at how he appear to the israelites in wilderness of sinai: a pillar of fire. do you really not understand this verse? what tribe was david from? his son solomon? what tribe was jesus from? i'll save you the trouble -- they're from judah. judah is the ruling tribe of the 12 tribes of israel. every king of judah and israel were from he tribe of judah. this is the verse where that is laid out, by israel himself. it's talking about an earthly throne, the throne of david. maybe you don't have an idea what it is. but the rest of us do. no, that is not what you are doing. you are quotemining scripture for your own ends. if you were trying to figure it out by comparison -- something that is valid -- you surely would have pulled out a concordance, found the other verses the concept appears in, and posted them. then you would have compared those to other verse describing the hebrew cosmology, such as the first chapter of genesis.you just posted a verse you happened to know from your recent pet idea, and said, "look, 'cirle' here, 'circle' there, it must be the same thing!" when pretty clearly, it's not. i'm arguing for a careful and analytical reading of the bible. listen, i've read ezekiel. this is not about ezekiel. ...because that's what it says? listen, either the bible supports your point, or it does not. you can't say, "it does, but only if you use my imagination." your "secret code" idea is simply an excuse for making up whatever you feel like, and claiming it to be "god's word." and if i read the bible, and think it means what it actually says, well, clearly i'm deluded or hell-spawn or something. no, see, you misunderstood again. if you knew what the verse meant, you would have also understood my reference to it. i gave my opinion eight whole pages ago before you completely ruined this topic with your nonsense.

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if you think simple has ever made a good point, you are probably being misled. well, the issue is this: can we take a verse from the bible, and switch around a few words here and there, and then claim it means something to back up our particular ideology?saying that i have no proof is rather ridiculous, in that it presupposes words can mean whatever we want, and so meaning is vague. meaning is not vague -- meaning is specific.what simple has done -- turn "circle" into "UFO" -- is really a more fantastic and obviously ludicrous version of what you would do: turn "circle" into "sphere." the verse really only makes any sense in light of the known hebrew cosmological perspective. that it would consistent with the description in genesis, and the sumerian descriptions, and the egyptian descriptions, and descriptions from all over the ancient near east should not be a surprise. it's not a coincidence. people who suppose any different are not working from the evidence and the text -- they are working from a person belief that the bible must be inerrant in every way, and perfectly handed down by god through the ages. and so little errors like this, that are totally consistent with everything else from that time and place, are "fudged" to line up better with reality by creative translations.and it's wrong. the text says what it says. for better or for worse. and it means what it says. if you attempt to apply another, more modern meaning, the imagery is totally lost, and things like the "tent" reference become broken nonsequitors.

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er, no. context -- the rest of the chapter. read it. PLEASE. are you serious? you don't need to read, think about, study, and understand the text? really? you mean "satan." "lucifer" is a latin name for the planet venus, used as a translation for hillel or "glorious" in isaiah 14 (and only isaiah 14). and it's evident that you've misread that, too -- not only do you fundamentally misunderstand the dynamics of god and satan (seriously, read job) but this is one of those very verses where god is talking to a king (through isaiah). to say it's somehow about satan... a complete misreading. once again, it's starting with a particular idea of how things work, regardless of other textual support, and reading bits and peices into things that don't actually have anything to do with it. but i'll forgive you, because that's a common mistake here, and not the topic of this thread.of course, neither are UFOs. yeah? say the harder thing. you don't believe the bible. the evidence is clear from your distortion of the text, how you feel the need to change it.

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right. knowledge = worthless. understanding = worthless. study = worthless.making shit up, and claiming to use the holy spirit as a decoder ring = win. no, UFOs are nonsense. your reading is nonsense. actually paying attention to what the text says and how it says it? muy importante. it's obvious that you've never taken a literature class. my "opinion" is based on a relatively simple analysis of the the facts including the language it was written in, basic vocabulary and etymology, context, grammar, style, structure, etc. i'm sorry you don't think that adds anything to discussion. it's gotta be about UFOs.there's a difference between an informed analysis, and "making shit up" which you don't seem to understand.

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we can conclude what the hebrew cosmology was by a multitude of examples. in fact, this verse only really makes sense in light of those examples, and a very careful understanding of the picture being painted. this is a completely bunk argument. we have no idea of knowing whether or not isaiah was a real person. it doesn't matter -- all we have is the text, and that's what we have to go by.now, we have a number of versions, translations, and ancient documents upon which we can base a conclusion about the changes made to the bible over the last 2,000 years. and mostly, the record of transmission looks pretty good. there are some instances of purposeful change, some accidental. but mostly, it's about 95-99% consistent in the documents still in the bible. the scribes seemed to prefer taking things at the scroll level -- if they liked it, the whole book was in. if not, it's gone. the only MAJOR editting comes from rearrangement of those scrolls, like how the torah was spliced together from several independent documents. but that is by far the exception to the rule, and even there shows the tendency to refrain from internal changes.if you doubt the accuracy of this word in particular (and it is possible, here), you might wish to consult the dead sea scrolls or the septuagint. but the hebrew has "circle."

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this seems like it's on the brink of becoming a philosophical argument about how we can never truly know anything.

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blah blah blah. projection if i ever heard it.look, you don't even have rhetoric. you've got the same one-liner, over and over. and you're getting frustrated now that people don't just blindly accept your god-given epiphany that everything relates to UFOs.now, please, stop muddying up this thread. you're hindering the real discussion. come back when you've read, thought about, studied, and understood isaiah. not just looked for flying saucers in it.oh, right. you don't need to read it. or think about it. or study it. or understand it. it's god's word, right to your keyboard.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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the thread was busted. didn't get listed in recent topics, didn't send out notifications. seems to be fixed now. oh, yes, sorry. that would be ain aretz or "there was no earth."

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technically, it makes sense either way, but you have know what the image is:the bit that "surrounds" (what the word really implies) the earth in the flat, circular sense, is in fact -- heaven. the hebrew can actually be translated either way. yes. they're not trying to convey an astrological truth here, but be a religious one. the picture they intent to paint is one of god looking down from heaven, and heaven spread around the earth like a tent.

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no, that's what i'm saying. your posts contribute nothing of worth. you just go on, and on about the same old things. never in any depth, just in one-liners. as you have done here. you don't support your arguments. you don't even argue your arguments. you just say them and expect your genius to convince us all. no, you are projecting. you claim my posts have not been substantiated -- but only because you don't happen to think that reading the book, or studying the language it was written in, or actually understanding context has any merit. no, the only "substantiation" that will do for you is "the holy spirit told me so."well, the holy spirit told me you were wrong.are we done here?

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what part of this don't you get? nobody's talking about ezekiel. nobody. only you. you have to support that ezekiel has anything to do with this verse, which you have not. demonstrate that this "circle" is the merkabah (which is composed of at least 8 circles or maybe 4 sphere, and 4 angels) instead of the far more obvious plain literal reading. really now. did you also prove that the sky is blue, and apples come from appletrees? of course it's from the bible. we're reading the bible. isaiah is in the bible. ...and again. the fact that i translated it from the original doesn't count as bringing anything to the table. the fact that i talked about how meaning can be inferred based on parallelism and context doesn't count either. real literary study is just bullshit to you, isn't it?well, the holy spirit still says you're wrong. he'd also like to talk to you about whoever the heck you're listening to -- he thinks it could be demonic in nature. don't look at me, that's just what he says. i know you don't know what i point is. that has been evident from your very first post in this thread. i made my point many pages ago. i even linked you to it. you don't happen to think that study is worthwhile, so you ignored it.

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except, of course, your way. you make claims like this, and totally fail to back them up in practice. if you think the bible is a good way to learn about the plan and message of god -- for god's sake, and your own, read it. learn about it. study it. understand it -- in context. learn about the language and history of the people who wrote it.until you do that, your words are utterly meaningless. hypocritical. you pretend to honor this book, but you just use it as a trump card, and a quote-mine source, to support your silly non-biblical, non-sensical arguments.no, your way of learning about god's plan and message is to claim the holy spirit told you so, and what the text actually says be damned. it means whatever you think you can get away with. and if those who have actually read, thought about, understood, and bothered to learn the language and culture don't see your obvious genius, then they just didn't get their Holy Spirit^TM decoder rings in their box of Holy Bible^(R) brand cracker jacks.

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more like three. isaiah was probably a real person, and his words were written down by his scribes, or disciples. at least one of the "other" isaiah seems to be a completely different person (some have suggested his son?) but there's really not very much in the way of evidence for any of that other than textual flavor."evidence for the existance of isaiah" is about the same category as "evidence for the existance of jesus." somebody wrote the books, and that's about it.

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for reference, simple is talking about the merkabah found in ezekiel 1, god's chariot. i've suggested he make a thread about that, as that is his latest pet red-herring to bring up in every other thread he participates in.maybe i'll have to do it.

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sorry, can't help you there. it doesn't come with basic unicode?

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