"Nightshades",

If you are a "mailman", who is the sender? Perhaps we should talk to him.

I didn't ask you to care what others say is correct or not. I asked you to read the book you quote and not make false statements about it.

If you make certain claims, including "the Bible says X", and they are NOT TRUE, it is perfectly all right to tell you and ask you to verify your sources. It has nothing to do with "what others say", merely with facts and honesty.

I don't intentionally misquote texts and I think I can expect people talking to me to pay equal attention to their sources.

This whole thing reminds me of a radio preacher I once heard in South Carolina.  He was going on about English being our native tongue here in the USA and said, "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, its good enough for us!"  Swear.

See ya.

    

Who is the sender? I already told you. And yes you should talk to the sender. Accept no one elses meaning for what scripture is telling you either except the sender's meaning.

I've quoted the scripture word for word, you just don't like what I say about it's meaning. No one's self importance ever does, and that includes mine as well. That is why you get so angry at me. You don't like the christian's meanings either, but they don't threaten your self importance like the meaning I've given does. No one's self importance ever feels threatened by another's however. Self importance will always use anothers self importance to prop itself up before your eyes. You see your self importance, and mine and everyone's are exactly the same, none different from the other. And those that are the same are only threatened by those that are not.

I understand and sympathize totally with how you feel. It makes one highly uncomfortable. However the feeling is just self importance not liking having itself exposed to you. It will do anything at all to prevent your knowledge of it, it wants you to think that you and it are inseparable, and that basically it is you. I guarantee it will get worse before it gets better, because now it has to work doubly hard at hiding from you.

Only because of the hardness of men's hearts so says Christ.

"They said to him, "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away?" He said to them, "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whosoever shall divorce his wife, except it be for fornication and shall marry another commits adultery and whoso marries her which is put away does commit adultery." Matt 19:8-9

Leauki,

You brought up a point to me which I never saw before and wanted to acknowledge you on this. That is, that adultery in the OT (such as David's) is so called only when a man has an affair with another married woman. I spent some time last night looking at all the references I could and saw that generally speaking you're right on this. If he has has sex with an unmarried woman, say a virgin he was supposed to marry her since he defiled her but I can see nowhere where it's called adultery. Neither can I see it called adultery in the matter of taking concubines (although as I said it's not God's perfect plan for man).

Where I'd disagree with you, however, is when you say that a man isn't one who commits adultery, only the woman.

Lev 20:10 says:

"And the man that commits adultery with another man's wife, even he that commits adultery with his neighbor's wife the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."

"If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman and the woman; so shall you put away evil from Israel." Deut 22:22

I think for the most part the Jewish men just ignored the law to suit their own purposes in not producing the man and just concentrated on putting the blame on the woman. That's why in the NT an adulteresss was thrown in front of Jesus alone demanding his answer for the right to stone her. Where was the man she committed adultery with according to the law of the Torah? They said she was caught in the act yet they didn't put the man in front of Christ. Why not?

Christ with his message to these men brought the definition of adultery to a higher level in that he said if a man even lusts after a woman in his heart he commits this sin. When he wrote in the sand, I wonder if he wasn't writing all the accuser's girlfriends' names down for them to see.

I didn't see you quote scripture word for word, except for two sentences, one of which was a mis-translation (and yes, I have the original text and can read it) and one which said the opposite of what you claimed it said.




I got angry at you because you continue to pretend that quoting a false translation somehow constitutes quoting the Bible and that the original text and newer translations somehow constitute a "new Bible" as opposed to your "old Bible".

You are not threatening me at all; but you are threatening the intellectual level of the discussion with your silly assertion that some faulty (and already corrected) translation constitutes an older text than the original.

NightShades, you are simply an idiot. You think you are all-so-important because you can quote some text and you don't realise that other people have simply seen the text before and understand it better and know more about it than you.

I'll explain it again: the text you quoted is a mis-translation. It has nothing to do with your Bible being "old" and others being "new". The original Hebrew text doesn't say "kill", it says "murder". I know. I have the original Hebrew text here and I can read it.

The Christians you refer to didn't claim that the translations they relied on where older texts than my Hebrew Bible. That's the difference between them and you in this context.

Very good.




You are actually bringing up an excellent point here:



I looked this up. And guess what I didn't know the word for "adultery" in Hebrew. It's not a word that comes up a lot in normal conversations, so I am sure you will forgive my ignorance of the word and the relevant verses.

You are right, Lev 20:10 speaks of an adulterer (masculine) and an adulteress (feminine). The word for adultery, according to the dictionary is "ni'of" (all vowels are long and written). "Adulterer" is "no'af" (I guessed the /a/ vowel) and "adulteress" is "no'afat". The "-at" ending suggests an old word that wasn't used very often (in most feminine words the "-t" was lost unless the word is followed by another noun).

And both words "no'af" and "no'afat" appear in Lev 20:10, as does the death penalty:

"V'ish asher yanaf et ashat ish asher yanaf et ashat re'aho mevet yomet haNaf v'haNafat."

"And the man that adulters the woman of a man, that adulters the woman of his neighbour death be executed (imperative) the adulterer and the adulteress."

(Rough translation is nearly word-for-word, with the comma where it made sense, and awkward wording for the verbs that follow a different grammar in Hebrew. Adulterer and adulteress are subjects of the last part of the sentence. As usual, I guessed the vowels. I suppose one should add "even" next to the second "that".)

So what we have here is the act of adultery defined by only the woman's status and not the man's, but the adulterer and adulteress defined by their participation in adultery.





I think so too; it is an all-too-common custom in the middle east, as we see today in Islamic countries. However "ignore" is too harsh a word, as the law definitely differentiates between the duties of a man and a woman in this case (despite my own objections to such a differentiation).




The rabbi Joshua of Nazareth had a point there.

Yes, thank you, KFC for pointing this out. I know there are reasons for things!

KFC POSTS:

Good work, KFC.

Marriage had become shamefully disfigured up until the time of Christ not only among the pagans but among the Jews. Marriage, the status of women and children (the family) was restored with Christ and Christianity.



Double good work.....this is really something to think about.

However, KFC, do take into account that the noaf (adulterer) is most likely a man who violated "do not covet the wife of thy neighbour" and therefor violated that law and not the "do not commit adultery" law.

The law in question ("Lo tna'f") doesn't seem to have a gender. ("Lo" means "no" and the "t" means the verb is in future tense, which is kind of an imperative when paired with "lo".)

But a man cannot by his actions alone violate that law.

Of course He did....stay tuned in...and you will come to realize our (yours and mine) High Priest is God....oh what a magnificant mystery.

I didn't say that it was an older text. Just that the bible I was using is itself older (as in printed earlier) than those currently written and I knew the meaning of it was correct. I didn't say that because it was older it was more correct. Putting words in another's mouth is an evaders tactic. What makes you or the others such experts except yourselves and those like you? As to one or two sentences you need to read from the beginning of my posts they are filled with quotes, not just one or two sentences of them. Perhaps it is you who should take his own advice and do some reading before talking.

You have the original text, really, are you an archeologist, or a museum curator? Or perhaps a time traveler? There are texts other than the hebrew that describe the same events, using different names of course, that are far older than the hebrew. Such as the one about Gilgamesh that describes the flood like Noah's does, of course it doesn't give God the credit. If God destroyed the entire world except for Noah and his family how is it that Gilgamesh and his family survived to write the tale? Get over yourself and your idea of exclusively owning the truth.

No, I'm not an idiot simply because I disagree with your meaning and the meanings expressed by the others as well. But as I've said over and over again, don't take my word for it, find out for yourself, or are you scared?

Could the fact that it doesn't have a gender implicate homosexuality as also adulterous?

yes coveting would be the first step correct? The lust of the eyes. It starts as a little seed of desire planted in the heart which left unchecked will grow into a fully mature lust plant culminating in fruition called adultery.

Thanks for the lesson Leauki. I admit I'm much better at Greek knowing very little Hebrew so it's nice to have your expertise here.

I like learning new things as I'm always a seeker of the truth.



sort of a "I should have had a v-8" moment? Makes more sense now doesn't it?



yes. What's interesting is the fact that one by one the male accusers left dropping their rocks as Jesus wrote in the sand. What's most interesting is the fact that the older men left first and after the younger men followed suit.

If I were you Leauki, I'd do as KFC does, totatally ignore me and the questions that I pose and hope that I go away. It is of course what most people do when they can't contradict what another is saying. Besides it will save your blood pressure.

"yes. What's interesting is the fact that one by one the male accusers left dropping their rocks as Jesus wrote in the sand. What's most interesting is the fact that the older men left first and after the younger men followed suit."

And this means what? That they were all guilty?

No. It just doesn't have a gender because that particular grammatical form doesn't differentiate between the genders.

What makes me an expert? I didn't claim to be an expert. But I did do some reading. And, unfortunately, what you said turned out to be wrong.




I have no such idea. I simply corrected a lie of yours. Surely you must realise that "older text" does not usually refer to the prints. The Hebrew text is older than the English translation, ANY English translation; regardless when that translation was printed.




Scared of what? I didn't say that you are an idiot because you disagree with my meaning (whatever that is). The point is I didn't take your word for it and did find out myself, and it turned out you were wrong.

It is now your turn to either acknowledge that you were wrong or back up that you are right using an even older text than the original. So far you seem to escape into semantics and do not offer much of an explanation for why your version of the Bible is more correct than the Hebrew text I have.



What questions do you pose? Do you really think that you are impressing anyone here? Your comments are hard to read because you don't quote correctly, your Bible quotes are uncoordinated and often wrong, your entire attitude is as if you knew everything better and that it should be obvious that you do, and all the while you do not ask any questions that make people think but simply provide (partly false) quotes without context as if that was an achievement of some sort.

And to top it all off, you seem to think that your crusade against accepting Bible texts other than your favourite translation has something to do with fighting ignorance and conservatism or misdirected orthodoxy; as if I (or anyone here) favour the death penalty just because I (and others) acknowledge that the Bible permits such a punishment; and as if it is somehow a question of morality whether one questions your quotes or not, as opposed to a question of correctness.

And what does any of this have to do with Noah and Gilgamesh? What does my belief regarding Noah or Gilgamesh have to do with the purely linguistic question of what a given text says??? Do you not differentiate between reading a text and believing it?

Whether I _believe_ that a death penalty is morally OK or not has _absolutely nothing_ to do with whether one should translate the Bible correctly. The Bible happens to permit a death penalty. But by acknowledging that it does I merely admit that I have checked the relevant verses and found them to say that, in Hebrew. It doesn't tell you anything about _my_ opinion on capital punishment.

So again, what questions do you pose?

And what do you do if somebody answers them?

I think "coveting" is merely a polite way of saying "coveting and worse".




Very good. I know no Greek, having picked French at school instead.

It is fun taking apart those ancient verses, a genuine linguistic adventure.

Plus it is fun to watch how different individuals react to actual research being done before their very eyes!

Ladies, I wouldn't get all excited about the status of women under Christianity.  As you should know, women until recently were not allowed to own property, vote, and had a reduced legal status. Even today conservative Christian women and men opposed women's rights, the ERA and so forth.  Moreover, its my understanding that Paul had issues with women. See Link.

Judaism, on the other hand, has a long history of supporting women's rights, protecting women through divorce procedures, and insuring they get appropriate settlements.  The Talmud tractate I am currently studying is all about this. Contemporary Judaism is very progressive. We have women rabbis, etc.

Be well.

 

Very true.

What part of "don't take my word for it" do you not understand?

Why should I admit that I am wrong, because you say that I am? Until you can prove to me that you are an expert, don't ask me to acknowledge it. And so far you haven't. You've simply proven to me that you have a great deal of self importance, bestowed on you by you.

I'm not out to impress anyone, least of all you, you however are out to impress me and because you can't change my mind, you name call. I don't have that much self importance that I have to stoop to such tactics. I asked KFC why one group of innocents (the aborted fetuses) were more important than the other group of innocents who are killed in wars. And of course she chose to ignore the question. Could it be that she doesn't have the answer? I guess you will find out what I will do when and if they are answered won't you?

I brought up the text of Gilgamesh and the story of the flood, and it is far older than any hebrew text of the same story. You however chose to ignore the fact that it is. (It's a matter of linguistics), it is not. It's a matter of the fact of the age between the two. Why am I not suprised at the fact that you chose to evade the main issue? However once more don't take my word for it, consult an archeologist, who is an expert on the ages of both.


Reading doesn't make one a expert, going to the original source and asking for the meaning does. Don't you understand the difference? I do understand the difference between reading a text and belief, they are both the same. And once more I do not "believe" anything. That is your forte, not mine. I've said time and time again, and yet once more ask the writer who is THE I AM what the true meaning is. Or can't you do this little thing?


My comments aren't hard to read obviously, you read them, and understood them, because you replied to them. even if it was only to tell me that they were wrong. You just don't agree with them because as you said before "they aren't helpful". And they aren't helpful either, not to your or to your self importance and desire of your need to have your religion to be the one and only exclusive owner of the truth. My quotes are not inaccurate either. You may not like or disagree with my explanations of them but that doesn't make them inaccurate.


Isn't it amazing how those with a common enemy can now agree, while patting each other on the back in congratulations as they circle the wagons in common defence? It's nice to see that people can agree and get along when it is necessary. You all have more in common than you realize and it's not religion.

For all you christians, you are absolutley correct in thinking that the world is groaning to an end. You as well as the jews, the hindu's, the buddhists, and the muslims, all have the option of willingly seeking the truth from it's original source THE I AM, or you will be forced to do so later. Personally I am of the opinion that to do so willingly is far better than to be forced to do so. However that is strictly my opinion and my choice. Your choice is up to you, we all have free will.

I understood it. But you clearly didn't expect me to question what you said.

You certainly don't know how to deal with being told that you were wrong.



Yes. Otherwise, why ask me not to take your word for it and find out for myself if you don't know how to deal with me not taking your word for it and finding out for myself?

You claimed the Bible said "do not kill" and I didn't take your word for it and found out for myself that the Bible actually said "do not murder". That's it. You are wrong.




Actually, I addressed that point. I told you that the Gilgamesh story has NOTHING to do with what we were talking about. I didn't make ANY claims regarding the age of each story. I didn't comment on the flood story. I didn't say anything about the flood story. It just doesn't have anything to do with your statements about killing and the death penalty.

You obviously don't understand what the issue is with the age of texts. Whether or not the Gilgamesh epic is older than the Noah legend has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with whether you were right or wrong about another part of the Bible.

You clearly brought up Noah and Gilgamesh to distract from the previous subject.

But we can talk about Noah and Gilgamesh, if you like. However, I would like to know; can I expect another change of subject if I "don't take your words" and "find out for myself"?

See, KFC and Lula; that is how Jesus appeared to the Jews 2000 years ago.

Except rabbi Joshua was better informed, more polite, and knew how to deal with being corrected.

(By "original source" he does not refer to the original Bible text, which makes research of his claims a bit difficult, to say the least. Who else thinks that the "original source" is known only to him?)

As for Hindus, my flatmate is a Hindu. I can ask him, but I am pretty sure that Hindus don't believe in an "end of the world" like Christians, Jews, and Muslims do. They have a worldview based on a circle or wheel, I think.