I do belive I've made my point! Judy is right and everyone else is wrong. Nuff Said!
You made some assertions, but you have not established that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Neither have you established that Judy is right and everyone else is wrong. What we have to work at here is to see what truth Judy holds that can be syncretized with the truth that you hold. I think Judy makes a very good point when she says that Scripture was written with a Holy Ghost mindset.
Allow me to ask a few questions about some of your assertions concerning the importance of Hebrew and Greek language study, and also this idea of how understanding the Hebrew mindset being important to understanding God's message.
Jeff wrote:
You know neither Hebrew or Greek, therefore you are unprepaired to make an authoritative comment or response.
Where does authority come from in making a comment or response? Does authority come from intellectual achievements? Do you really mean to argue that the one who studies Hebrew and Greek has more authority than the one who does not? Or do you mean to say that only in the realm of linguistic comment she would lack any authority?
Jeff wrote:
Lets use the words we have been given in scripture! That would mean Hebrew and Greek! Everything else is translation and interpretation.
Not necessarily. If we have access to the author of Scripture, and the author of what was written in Hebrew can communicate to us in English, then a person can come to a very good understanding of the Scriptures without knowing any Hebrew and Greek. Would you agree with this statement?
Jeff wrote:
Which brings us to the root of the problem; divisive people bent on having the last and ONLY word.
Exactly who do you mean? You are the one who usually says something like, "'Nuff said" or "End of Discussion." Are you characterizing yourself as being divisive and bent on having the last and ONLY word, or are you applying this to Judy or someone else?
Jeff wrote:
The,"Everyone else can go squat, because they are wrong" mentality. What a sickening and disturbing way to be.
It seems to me that Judy is attempting to discuss the subject, but you want to have your word and then cease the discussion. I'm still trying to figure out if you are trying to characterize her by these words, or if you are trying to abase yourself with these words.
Jeff wrote:
We must strive over the ENGLISH words of our translations to get to the true meaning...
Surely you must recognize that Jesus did not teach this and neither did Paul. Jesus taught us that we would receive the Spirit of Truth, who would guide us into all truth. Jesus did not teach that he would leave us a Bible that would then be translated into English and then if we wanted to know the truth we would have to learn Hebrew and Greek and strive over understanding the original meaning of these words in order to apprehend the truth.
Jeff wrote:
thats what we are told by Rav Sha'ul in his epistle to Timothy,"Study to show yourself approved..." CONTEXT,CONTEXT, CONTEXT, without putting a 21st century spin, or personal agenda on everything.
Rav Sha'ul saying, "study to show yourself approved" is not the same thing as saying we must learn archaic languages or we cannot hope to grasp the truth. Context can be helpful, and the filter of a 21st century culture sometimes hinders our understanding of a Biblical message, but you go too far to imply that without a proper intellectual approach to the study of Scripture we cannot hope to apprehend truth.
Jeff wrote:
And yes I have an agenda, to understand scripture in the context in which it was written, from the Hebraic mindset scripture was written in. Like it or not, when you remove the Hebraic background from scripture, you get the muddy field we now struggle to get through. And most of the divisive mud-slinging with which we (most of us here) are forced to sift through in order to gain a few pearls here and there.
Please consider some history here. Who was it in the first century who had the divisive mindset that caused riots and attacked the preachers of Christ? Was it the Gentiles with their Greek mindset or was it the Jews with their Hebrew mindset? Clearly it was the Hebrew mindset that rejected Jesus Christ for the most part. Those who were steeped in the Greek thought of Plato and Greek dualism readily embraced the gospel message and the concept of the resurrection of the dead, also the idea that righteousness comes through the spirit and not the flesh, etc. The Hebrews had a terrible time grasping the teaching of Rav Sha'ul which separated spirit from flesh whereas the Gentiles readily grasped his meaning and viola, Christianity was born out of the Greek mindset not the Hebrew mindset.
Now please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I study the Hebrew mindset because it helps our understanding in many things, but God is not just the God of the Hebrews, but the God of the whole world. God worked in a multifaceted way to reveal his truth and the Hebrew mindset was a stumbling block to believing in Yeshua. You cannot argue with the historical truth of this. The best we can do is try and understand why this was. Part of the trouble was that except for the Pharisees, the Hebrews had trouble separating spirit from flesh and accepting the idea of an afterlife or that righteousness was obtained through a recognition of the dual nature of man being both spirit and flesh.
The bottom line is that sometimes the Hebrew mindset helps us better understand the Biblical message, and sometimes the Hebrew mindset hinders us from understanding the Biblical message. Do you agree?
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
If you do not want to receive posts from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be unsubscribed. If you have a friend who wants to join, tell him to send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and he will be subscribed.
