Bible Teachings or Traditions of Men?

Thank you, that guy does a good job. I like the way the Bible verses pop up too, that's a neat way of doing it.I do think that occasionally he's reaching; however most of it is convincing.

Since you clearly have no idea what Larni's talking about, this is a bad time for you to get all pompous and condescending.

If you move your mouse pointer over a reference, the relevant verse pops up.Your other complaint seems to be that there's a whole lot of it. So there is. That's easier to say than to do.

However, your Blue Letter guy does teach that Jesus is omnipotent, and the verse Pressie cites does make it look like he isn't.

Indeed. Yup.

Then perhaps you shouldn't ask questions about subjects for which there is a lot of evidence. Or, in your case, any of it. Though you have found the time to write long-winded complaints about being shown lots of evidence.

You keep using the term "personal philosophy". I hardly think that the doctrine of the trinity is that guy's personal philosophy. So what you should have written is "The third-party source spent the entire time telling people the doctrine of the trinity, with verses of scriptures tossed in as support for the doctrine of the trinity".The guy did quite a good job, I don't see why you won't make an effort to rebut any of his trinitarian arguments.

It seems to have worked just fine, in that so far you have been unable to come up with a single counter-argument.

Where did you get your idea that your standards are good? They're not, they're crap.Now, NoNukes is right. There would indeed be nothing wrong with you advocating your own position. If you don't, then I and everyone else reading this thread will assume that you don't because you can't. Actually, debate doesn't work like that. You, of course, are free to keep to your own rule that you won't ever say anything in favor of your own opinions. We, on the other hand, are free to draw our own conclusions about why you refuse to even try to do so. His arguments were so correct that you have been unable to produce a coherent argument against them, and, let's be frank, you are a buffoon.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Or he could stick around and continue to point out that if you want to know what the Bible teaches, then reading the Bible would be a good start and producing your reams of shifty pompous blather is not.

But this rule doesn't actually work. For example the translators of the Septuagint rendered Psalms 35:23 ("Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.") as: Now since Greek makes a distinction between second person singular and plural we know that the translators of the Septuagint thought that the psalmist was addressing only one person; and yet they have the psalmist address this person as "ὁ θεός μου καὶ ὁ κύριός μου" --- "my God and my Lord".Or again, Psalms 84 (according to our numbering, the Septuagint has it as 83 and I don't know why) says: "Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God."The Septuagint renders it as: Again we know the person being addressed is singular in number, because it says "θυσιαστήριά σου" ("thine altars"); if more than one person was being addressed it would be "θυσιαστήριά σας". And yet this single person is addressed as "ὁ Βασιλεύς μου καὶ ὁ Θεός μου" --- "my king and my God".Now these two cases are perfectly parallel to the case to which author of the "Trinity Delusion" website wishes to apply his "rule": they are written in koine Greek, two honorific nouns are joined by the copula καὶ, one of the nouns is θεός, both nouns take the article ὁ, both nouns are qualified by the possessive pronoun μου. And in both the cases I have adduced it is certain that only one person is being spoken of, and it is also the person who is being spoken to.

Au contraire. Granville Sharp learned Greek specifically in order to debate Unitarians. You could have looked him up, you know.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, he didn't, the Unitarian website is merely using his (sixth) rule for their purposes. I think I've demonstrated that in parallel cases the rule fails.Sharp himself was interested in the application of his first rule, which says that if you have two nouns joined with καὶ, and the first noun takes the article, and the second doesn't, then they do refer to the same person. He applied that to, for example, Titus 2:13: "προσδεχόμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ" --- "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ". If Sharp's first rule is correct, then since "great God" ("μεγάλου θεοῦ") takes the article, ("τοῦ") whereas "our" Savior ("σωτῆρος ἡμῶν") doesn't, they must be the same person. I don't find this quite convincing, because it seems to me that although in Greek the the possessive pronoun is often used together with the article, the possessive pronoun itself might confer enough definiteness on the noun that it doesn't need the article. So although "the great God and our Saviour" might be one person, it might be two. I'd have to look into other texts of similar construction.But then in 2 Peter 1:1 we have: "Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:" which is, in the original Greek: "Σίμων Πέτρος δοῦλος καὶ ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῖς ἰσότιμον ἡμῖν λαχοῦσιν πίστιν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ". "Our God", "θεοῦ ἡμῶν", takes the article, "τοῦ", but "Savior", "σωτῆρος" doesn't.I find this one convincing. If two people were meant, then "Savior" would surely have to be qualified separately by something, either the definite article or the word for "our".Whether Sharp's rules work in general, I'm not so sure, he has been criticized, and he was only an amateur Greek grammarian, his main interest being the abolition of the slave trade. And I have (as you've seen) found exceptions to his sixth rule as I have seen it stated (though perhaps he himself qualified it in ways of which I am unaware). However, clearly Unitarians are playing with fire if they start invoking his rules.

I don't thing you've grasped the nature of the proposed rules. The two "descriptions" referred to are those which are conjoined by καὶ. Read the rule again: As for what an English translation of the Septuagint says, this is not nearly so important as what the Septuagint says.

Well, since you did in fact misread it, I thought that was apter advice than: "Rub yourself repeatedly with a small marsupial while singing My Way". I pondered my options carefully.