|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Death in Relation to the Creation and Fall | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: but I don't agree that physical death was in any way a natural part of God's creation, but that it entered as a result of the Fall, as did spiritual death, in fact the death of the whole being, and of the whole Creation. what was the purpose of the tree of life?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
right, but, in the story. why was it in the garden?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: It doesn't say. Genesis 2:9 merely says it was in the midst of the garden, no reason given. right, but i'm asking for a little bit of thought applied to the text, not just what it says. yahweh planted the garden for the man. why did he give the man a tree that provided life?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: I gave you what the commentators say, I don't know otherwise. If you have a theory why don't you give it? i'm not sure you particularly gave me any answers from the commentators with regards to my question. but let me phrase it like this:
quote: yahweh planted the garden after he made the man. he did not have a garden already, for his own use, and then think, "wouldn't it be great if i had a servant to water my plants while i'm away." he made the man first, and then built the garden, filling it with food for the man. there are three kinds of trees in the garden. one gives him food he doesn't otherwise have. another gives him knowledge he doesn't otherwise have. and third... does nothing at all, in yahweh's original design? so why did yahweh place it in the garden?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes: So it gives life. They ate from, and obtained, the knowledge of good and evil. But they didn't eat from, and gain, the life. So, ultimately, they will die. Is that what the authors intended? it may not make a whole lot of sense to put a forbidden tree in the center of the garden, but perhaps we can rationalize that: maybe yahweh was saving it for later, maybe it was a test, etc. but it makes zero sense to give them a magical tree that is clearly special in its gifts... of absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
It seems like the trees "sustained" whatever they were of. And they could take it. the text isn't very clear on the idea of whether the benefits stuck around from the first bite, or whether the trees sustained them. i would make an argument that it's from the first bite, because the story is strongly allegorical and etiological in nature. but you could probably make an argument the other way.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
herebedragons writes: I believe you are a bit of a Hebrew scholar armchair, at best.
In fact, my concordance says this phrase is actually "mut" + "mut". well, מוֹת תָּמוּת, mot tamut. the double verb is two different tenses: the first, mot, is an infinitive. it's functioning as a noun. the second, tamut (or tamot? it might be mispointed) is an imperfect (masculine, singular) verb, which we generally translate as future tense. so it's actually a complete phrase: "you will die a death" or something that effect. hebrew infinitives and infinitive constructs don't work very well in english. it seems to be kind of poetic emphasis.
However, I see no indication by how the word is used elsewhere that this means anything but a literal, physical death - not a process of dying. indeed. this concept would be utterly foreign to the torah, which does not treat the spiritual concerns as fundamentally different from the physical ones. the concept of a separate "soul" other than the thing that causes you breathe is simply not found at all in torah; only later texts in the bible. it is yahwehs own soul, his breath, that animates the dust (adamah) to create the man (ha'adam), and without each other either is meaningless. the "blessing" that the patriarchs are constantly fighting over is the tree of life -- more, physical, earthly life. and when yahweh takes the blessing away, he goes to kill his prophets and patriarchs. physical life was deeply spiritual to authors of the torah, particularly J, and you simply cannot divorce the two concepts.
In fact, there are several places where mut + mut is used throughout the OT and each time it gives the impression of a certainty that one would be killed, almost like a vow. What is your take on this and what is your understanding of how the word is used? sounds about right, yes. i think it's meant to emphasize the certainty; that death is the pronouncement and the person making this claim is not screwing around. to make it mean something other than real, actual, physical death is to have missed the entire point of emphasizing it so strongly.
Also, I understand that the Hebrews viewed death as a separation - so physical death would be a separation of soul and body; spiritual death would be separation of God and man. that's more of a christian thing, though it could have roots in the late second temple fringe elements of judaism. i'm not terribly familiar with that, but they believed some things more in like with early christianity's gnostic tendencies. suffice to say, the hebrew concept of death evolved dramatically over the course of the biblical period. particularly after contact with the greeks, when the hebrew sheol (a literal family grave) took on concepts more suited to hades, an underworld for the shades of the dead. the christian gospels are certainly working from an entirely different concept of "the grave" than, say, genesis.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined:
|
hi DA,
i don't really know enough greek to be able to make an argument here, but:
If you look at the literal Greek translation it says: "because of this as by one man sin into the world entered and by sin death also thus to all men death passed" interlineal translations are often clunky and awkward, and not necessarily good ways to make arguments. i know the hebrew ones are especially bad, partly because the language reads RTL, and partly because, well, even literal translations have to fudge the grammar a little bit because english grammar is not hebrew grammar. and it's not greek grammar, either. but i'm mainly commenting because of this:
The word for death here means physical or spiritual death. From Strong's concordance: "separation from the life (salvation) of God forever by dying without first experiencing death to self to receive His gift of salvation". i would strongly advise you against using a source like blueletterbible in this way. what you're looking at is not strong's concordance. a concordance is merely a listing of all places a root word appears in a text. even that's a little flawed, because it tends to list many things that should be one root as separate, and then sometimes combines homonyms. but what you're looking at is a bible dictionary. and those are notoriously suspect. BLB uses gesenius (not the updated brown driver briggs, which is generally considered the better source), and then layers on top of that their own "easy to understand" dictionary with a fundamentalist evangelical bent. there's no particular reason you should take their definitions (or anyone elses!) for particularly controversial, dogmatic concepts for granted. they are probably operating from some kind of bias. a better way would be actually use the concordance, and look at how a word is used in context in other places in the bible. does any other use support a purported definition? granted, the best way to do this is with knowledge of the grammar (words can mean very different things used differently) but if most other examples plainly mean one thing, and only one special case means the hotly debated dogmatic thing, it's a pretty solid indication of what the meaning actually is. Edited by arachnophilia, : words words words
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: I'm the one who trusts in those who agree with me since I'm too stupid to have the ability to make rational judgments of my own; I'm the one who doesn't have the sense to grow with knowledge. don't worry faith, i have faith in you. but i asked you to make a rational judgment earlier in this thread, and you never replied.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: I thought I said that I don't know why the tree of life was put in the Garden except for the reasons given by various commentators. I don't know why you keep making an issue of this. As far as I can see it doesn't relate to the topic under discussion. But if you have a theory of your own I'd be interested in what it is. i essentially replied to this comment the first time you made it, in Message 35:
quote: you didn't reply; nor did you detail what any of the various commentators said. if you can't give me your own opinion, would you care to at least provide theirs? because i believe most of the jewish sources are on my side, here. that is, if man had been created immortal, there would be no reason for the tree of life to exist in the garden. since it does, and eating from it would make them immortal, they were not created immortal.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: Sigh. The scripture also doesn't use the word "Trinity" or "the Fall." And the example of the NT's interpretation of the OT is VERY good reason to follow suit. we can, however, contextually read the OT and see if the NT interpretation fits the context. we can also see if the NT interpretation fits the modern dogmatic claims.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined:
|
Faith writes: Whatever you say, arach. I'll stick with traditional theology. well, no, you won't. you're going with this new-fangled sect of jesus worshipers, and not the prior standing traditional theology of judaism.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined:
|
Faith writes: I do not question the NT. End of subject. then how can you hope to understand it?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined:
|
Faith writes: Arach, you aren't a believer, right? You approach the Bible purely as a scholar? the scholarly approach has made belief difficult. i'm not sure if it's made it impossible just yet.
I didn't say I understand all the NT, I don't question it because I know it's God's word so I know it's the truth even though I may not understand all of it yet. Jesus said "believe," He didn't say "criticize." he also said,
quote: how can you be given, if you don't ask? how can you find if you don't seek?
What a believer does is seek God's help in reading and understanding, prays about it, listens to sermons, reads commentaries, consults the concordance etc. In fact trusting it is the only way you'll ever understand it. If you question it with the attitude that any part of it is wrong you'll just get deeper and deeper into misunderstanding. if it is god's word, it should stand up to scrutiny. i don't think this is particularly a hard demand. any belief that has that belief as a prerequisite is just question-begging. it's an echo-chamber: start with belief, affirm the belief, and only listen things that function to affirm the belief.
The Bible is no doubt the only book that should be approached this way. why? because even you understand that any book you approach this way will enter that echo-chamber; that doing so will affirm the truth of anything? what's interesting is that even the bible advocates testing the bible. the torah advises you to approach any prophet with an attitude of skepticism, especially those that claim to speak for yahweh:
quote: the god of the bible is commanding you to question those who speak in his name, and words that are claimed to be his. and he's demanding an objective test. why do you think that if this was literally meant to be applied to joshua first, jesus's namesake, and then to every other prophet that was to follow, that it should not also apply to jesus, or the people who reported what jesus said? Edited by arachnophilia, : grammars
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Faith writes: Christian theology begins in the New Testament and continues through the Church Fathers and down the millennia. It IS traditional theology and not "new-fangled" i wasn't being entirely serious in my post. but i think the overall point is still valid. it's hard to argue for going with tradition when you're very specifically rejecting older traditions.
Jesus contended with the Pharisees you know, but you prefer their thinking over His apparently. in fact, jesus's mode of criticism of the religious establishment is entirely in line with the old testament mode of the prophets, and even several of the biblical authors.
It's only through the New Testament interpretations that you can hope to understand the Bible. christians tend to say stuff like that, yeah, but honestly, the whole thing got significantly clearer the moment i started reading jewish thought. as lewis black quipped: it's not your book.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
DevilsAdvocate writes: Spiritual death. Again, God said on the day you eat of the Tree of Knowledge, you shall die. Did they die physically on that day? No. So what is God talking about. Spiritual seperation from God aka spiritual death. "on the day that" or "in the day of" is a hebrew idiom that means "when". it's more immediate than the same day. but the spiritual notion is totally unfounded in genesis, which doesn't seem to regard spiritual concerns as distinct from physical ones. there are really only two possibilities: either yahweh lied (implying the tree was poison, as the woman understood it), or yahweh decided not to kill them for some reason, perhaps mercy.
This is why he say "Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani" (very similar to David's Psalm 22:1) translated as "God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?". it is, in fact, the psalm. jesus was just speaking in aramaic, not hebrew.
You still did not answer why would God put an angel (cherebum) kerubim is plural.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024