OT: On moral action (from a different thread)

[elendil]

Lorenzo, Eisenman's work is generally considered to be highly tendentious, and not serious scholarship. I enjoy revisionist scholarship as much as the next guy, but...

However, did you know that the millenia old tradition of the Eastern churches is that the "brothers (and sisters)" of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a first wife (before Mary). That makes sense in a number of ways. One way is that Joseph appears to have been a prosperous contractor in Galilee, yet tradition has always maintained that he married Mary late in life. For a relatively affluent man to remain unmarried through most of his adult life would have been counter-cultural at that time, so this tradition makes good sense. In addition, the tone of the gospel accounts of relations between Jesus and his "brothers (and sisters)" appears consonant with that interpretation: Jesus is treated as a somewhat wayward younger sibling. I'd be interested to know whether Eisenman addresses the Eastern traditions, but without paying for the book.

Jim, don't be too quick of the mark. Next week the Supreme court may ban hijabs as illegal political speech when worn within 60 days of an election.

[Lorenzo]

There can be little doubt (as Waldo well knows) of where the tradition of women veiling their faces came from. The bible has several places of reference.

"For this cause ought the women to have power (a covering) on her head because of the angels."
1 Cor 11:10

"And the sons of God saw the daughter of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." Gen 6:2

Gen 6:4 goes on to describe how giants were produced by this mixture of women and the fallen angels (sons of God) and the problems they caused. And hey, this is no myth!

Enoch describes these sex-crazed angel in more detail, and the problems they created. And this is why it became necessary to veil the face, so as not to excite the angels (not only man). And it also seemed to confuse the onlooker, as to which gender this covered person was.

When it's all said and done, it's the Book of Enoch that finally makes the connection. This little book was kind of a pocket edition like the NT around the time of Christ, both before and after. But someone (I wonder who elendil ) saw fit to ban it from the canon.

Here's a little interesting history of the veil through the ages, including commentaries from Clement, Tertullion, and Hippolytus:
http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:0ZW ... n&ie=UTF-8


Says who about Dr. Eisenman? Only those who have something to lose, probably. I'd be just as interested in what Eisenman has to say about them! (but you probably knew that) Remember what they said about the person who finally bootlegged copies of the dead sea scrolls from those who had nothing to gain by it's release? Same old protectionist views. Remember who withheld them for almost a half century in fear that someone might misunderstand the early church connection, just like the church withheld the scriptures from the common man for centuries, thinking it a danger that the poor common person might gain direct, unfiltered, access and insight to the real message. What a shame, if this thinking still continues. Come to find out, it's the common people who look more capable of setting the church straight! Just observe the scandals the church finds so hard to cover up nowadays. Poor babies!

No, I wouldn't trust someone from the inside to educate me on what's what. Been there, done that. No thanks!

[Jerry Freeman]

Here's a very interesting article on the origins of the veil in Islamic tradition, along with a lot of other interesting information about different brands of Islam that are stirring conflict, and their connection with our friends, the Saudis:

http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/20 ... mic_women/

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Lorenzo]

Here's an article on the veil from an Islamic point of view.

On France...France will be France, that's all we can really know.

THE VEIL IN ISLAM AND THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Let us shed some light on what is considered in the West as the greatest symbol of women’s oppression and servitude, the veil or the head cover. Is it true that there is no such thing as the veil in the Judaeo-Christian tradition? Let us set the record straight.

According to Rabbi Dr. Menachem M. Brayer (Professor of Biblical Literature at Yeshiva University) in his book, The Jewish woman in Rabbinic literature, it was the custom of Jewish women to go out in public with a head covering which, sometimes, even covered the whole face leaving one eye free [76]. He quotes some famous ancient Rabbis saying,

“ It is not like the daughters of Israel to walk out with heads uncovered” and “Cursed be the man who lets the hair of his wife be seen....a woman who exposes her hair for self-adornment brings poverty.”

Rabbinic law forbids the recitation of blessings or prayers in the presence of a bareheaded married woman since uncovering the woman’s hair is considered “nudity”. Dr. Brayer also mentions that “During the Tannaitic period the Jewish woman’s failure to cover her head was considered an affront to her modesty. When her head was uncovered she might be fined four hundred zuzim for this offense.” Dr. Brayer also explains that veil of the Jewish woman was not always considered a sign of modesty. Sometimes, the veil symbolized a state of distinction and luxury rather than modesty. The veil personified the dignity and superiority of noble women. It also represented a woman’s inaccessibility as a sanctified possession of her husband.

The veil signified a woman’s self-respect and social status. Women of lower classes would often wear the veil to give the impression of a higher standing. The fact that the veil was the sign of nobility was the reason why prostitutes were not permitted to cover their hair in the old Jewish society. However, prostitutes often wore a special headscarf in order to look respectable. Jewish women in Europe continued to wear veils until the nineteenth century when their lives became more intermingled with the surrounding secular culture. The external pressures of the European life in the nineteenth century forced many of them to go out bare-headed. Some Jewish women found it more convenient to replace their traditional veil with a wig as another form of hair covering. Today, most pious Jewish women do not cover their hair except in the synagogue. Some of them, such as the Hasidic sects, still use the wig.

What about the Christian tradition?

It is well known that Catholic Nuns have been covering their heads for hundreds of years, but that is not all.
-continued here: http://www.thewaytotruth.org/womaninisl ... stian.html

[jim stone]

The French proposal (gaining steam)
illegalizing head scarves and yamulkas
and so on from public schools would be struck
down as unconstitutional here--though it's unlikely
that anybody here would try such a thing. Note that our old
friend Chirac backs the law. France isn't all of
europe, but I've lived in Europe and I do
believe the USA is in many ways
the New World. We take a lot for
granted, I think. Best

[elendil]

elendil wrote:

Lorenzo, Eisenman's work is generally considered to be highly tendentious, and not serious scholarship. I enjoy revisionist scholarship as much as the next guy, but...

However, did you know that the millenia old tradition of the Eastern churches is that the "brothers (and sisters)" of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a first wife (before Mary). That makes sense in a number of ways. One way is that Joseph appears to have been a prosperous contractor in Galilee, yet tradition has always maintained that he married Mary late in life. For a relatively affluent man to remain unmarried through most of his adult life would have been counter-cultural at that time, so this tradition makes good sense. In addition, the tone of the gospel accounts of relations between Jesus and his "brothers (and sisters)" appears consonant with that interpretation: Jesus is treated as a somewhat wayward younger sibling. I'd be interested to know whether Eisenman addresses the Eastern traditions, but without paying for the book.

Lorenzo wrote:

Says who about Dr. Eisenman? Only those who have something to lose, probably. I'd be just as interested in what Eisenman has to say about them! (but you probably knew that) Remember what they said about the person who finally bootlegged copies of the dead sea scrolls from those who had nothing to gain by it's release? Same old protectionist views. Remember who withheld them for almost a half century in fear that someone might misunderstand the early church connection, just like the church withheld the scriptures from the common man for centuries, thinking it a danger that the poor common person might gain direct, unfiltered, access and insight to the real message. What a shame, if this thinking still continues. Come to find out, it's the common people who look more capable of setting the church straight! Just observe the scandals the church finds so hard to cover up nowadays. Poor babies!

No, I wouldn't trust someone from the inside to educate me on what's what. Been there, done that. No thanks!

Lorenzo, you're makin' me feel bad--I feel like I must be wasting your valuable time. The way I see it, if my question hadn't been a complete waste of your time you would have responded to it, right? Just like that lengthy post I did about the supposed conflict you saw between Matthew and Romans that you ignored. Sorry to bother you with details. But I do hope these won't be listed in future threads as more instances in which your assertions went undisputed.

Also, your swipes at "insiders" are misplaced. While I'm certainly no defender of the academic status quo or establishment, it was precisely mainstream scholars like R. H. Charles who, for example, brought the Book of Enoch (see below) to the attention of Scriptural scholars. Those scholars who broke the logjam on the Scrolls weren't "outsiders" either. Moreover, one of the very first who made the Bible available to the "common people" was also the one who tried to toss out those writings that didn't support his theories (remember the "epistle of straw?"). You can't have it both ways.

Lorenzo wrote:

Enoch describes these sex-crazed angel in more detail, and the problems they created. And this is why it became necessary to veil the face, so as not to excite the angels (not only man). And it also seemed to confuse the onlooker, as to which gender this covered person was.

When it's all said and done, it's the Book of Enoch that finally makes the connection. This little book was kind of a pocket edition like the NT around the time of Christ, both before and after. But someone (I wonder who elendil ) saw fit to ban it from the canon.

Here's a little interesting history of the veil through the ages, including commentaries from Clement, Tertullion, and Hippolytus:

1. You'll be pleased to know that my translation identifies both references to the Book of Enoch in the New Testament, as well as references to other apocryphal Jewish works such as the Assumption of Moses.

2. Enoch sheds very little additional light on this episode than is found in Genesis 6.

3. I checked out the links you provided. Not that it actually matters, but the .gif's of catacomb art depict women wearing what look for all the world like dish towels on their heads--their faces are not veiled. There is, in all this, a chicken/egg problem, also. Enoch is not a particularly early writing. I strongly suspect that women in the ancient Middle East covered their heads (and possibly veiled their faces) for centuries or even millenia before Enoch was written. The angel story sounds rather like the origin myths that are concocted to explain existing customs are circumstances (rather like the "Just So Stories") by peoples around the world and throughout history. While the Church did encourage this custom in the assembly, it was never invested with any particular doctrinal significance. It may well have been common attire on the street in Eastern areas, but there is no--repeat, no--evidence that it was common public attire in Greek, Roman or Western areas. Each area followed existing fashions. For what it's worth.

4. There's no mystery as to why Enoch was not included in the canon. It was left out of the NT because it had no claim to apostolic authorship and, in any event, was not a Christian book. As far as the OT was concerned, the Church essentially followed the Jewish lead, with the exception that the Church also included Jewish writings that were widely used both in Second Temple Judaism and also were accorded a high authority in the NT writings. Enoch was never included in the Jewish canon (fixed by the so-called synod of Jamnia in about 90 AD). Enoch by that time had conclusively fallen out of favor in what became Rabbinic Judaism. While no one questions the popularity of Enoch in general, it is quoted only twice in the NT and may possibly be referred to a few more times. Compare that to the other non-canonical Jewish writings that are included in the NT--there is no comparison. References and allusions to the Wisdom literature are, relatively speaking, everywhere compared to Enoch. The NT canon was not fixed for 3 centuries, by which time Enoch was largely forgotten in both Jewish and Christian circles. There is no need for conspiracy theory to explain the exclusion of Enoch, any more than there is to explain the exclusion from the NT of the Shephard of Hermas, the Didache, the letters of Clement, of Barnabas, of Ignatius and other early Christian writings. The fact of wide currency was not alone sufficient to gain inclusion in the canon, and you provide no reasons why it should have been included.

5. If you haven't already read this book, I would recommend Gabriele Boccaccini's Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism. It's quite stimulating and informative about the whole intellectual/religious milieu of the transition period that led to the rise of Rabbinic Judaism on the one hand and Christianity on the other. It's a good read--go there, do it!

[Lorenzo]

(did you watch "The Origins of Christianity" on PBS tonight? I did.)

psssst...

Whachya thinkin?

No answer? (just kidding) I don't feel anything if you chose not to answer my questions. It doesn't mean a thing. And I know it's difficult to stay unassuming.

Enoch sheds very little additional light on this episode than is found in Genesis 6.

Genesis 6
1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 (skip; non-essential)
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

In contrast, compare the greater details listed in the following Book of Enoch:

Ch 6

1
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto
2
them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men
3
and beget us children.' And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not
4
indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations
5
not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves
6
by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn
7
and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their leaders: Samîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl,
8
Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl. These are their chiefs of tens.

Ch 7

1
And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms
2
and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they
3
became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed
4
all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against
5
them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and
6
fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.

Ch 8

1
And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all
2
colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they
3
were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, 'Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl (taught) astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Êzêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and Sariêl the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven...

Ch 9

1
And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being
2
shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. And they said one to another: 'The earth made without inhabitant cries the voice of their cryingst up to the gates of heaven.
3
And now to you, the holy ones of heaven, the souls of men make their suit, saying, "Bring our cause
4
before the Most High."' And they said to the Lord of the ages: 'Lord of lords, God of gods, King of kings, and God of the ages, the throne of Thy glory (standeth) unto all the generations of the
5
ages, and Thy name holy and glorious and blessed unto all the ages! Thou hast made all things, and power over all things hast Thou: and all things are naked and open in Thy sight, and Thou seest all
6
things, and nothing can hide itself from Thee. Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which
7
men were striving to learn: And Semjâzâ, to whom Thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates. And they have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the
9
women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins. And the women have
10
borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness. And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and making their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended: and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are 11 wrought on the earth. And Thou knowest all things before they come to pass, and Thou seest these things and Thou dost suffer them, and Thou dost not say to us what we are to do to them in regard to these.'

The first chapters of Enoch (1-11) explain and expand the first part of Gen 6. This motif of "fallen angels" (the sons of God) who came down from heaven and mated with the fair "daughters of men" were imprisoned for that sin, to hang in chains till the Judgement Day. This was a favorite legend omong the Essenes, repeated and referred to many times in the Enoch literature and other books like Jubilees, the Testaments of Reuben and Naphtali.

For in 1 Pet 3:18-20, we see doctrine developing where either Christ or Enoch (depending on which version you read) visited these spirits in prison.

BTW, the early Christians liked the story too, as did the Church Fathers. In fact this imprisonment became a bone of contention between Tertullion and Augustine, and since denial was in that book of the Bishop of Hippo De Civitate Dei it practically settled the question about fallen angels and Enoch.

Hey, I like and admire Charles. And, I've heard that version of Joseph's other kids since I was a kid. And, if I were to share with you all I've ever read on the history of the turban worn by women in the ME, I'd probably jam the cache memory of this board system.

Look...for me it would be more like Jim relates to Buddhism. If I were to become a Christian, I'd be more attracted to original Christianity that was practiced before Paul Hellenized the works, and before the first flock began to compromise with him. I assume you are acquinted with the concepts and similarities of Christianity before Christ. In fact, perhaps I'm taking it for granted, but I assume you are acquinted with the following parallels and similarities between Christ Jesus and Christna Zesus. Christna lived hundreds (I repeat, hundreds) of years before Christ. You think these following similarities are just coincidence?

Both were called both a God and the Son of God.
Both was sent from heaven to earth in the form of a man.
Both were called Savior, and the second person of the Trinity.
Both had an adoptive human father that was a carpenter.
Both had a spirit or ghost that their actual father also.
Both Chrishna and Jesus were of royal descent.
Both were visited at birth by wise men and shepherds, guided by a star.
In both cases, angels issued a warning that the local dictator planned to kill the baby and had issued a decree for his assassination. The parents fled. Mary and Joseph stayed in Muturea; Chrishna's parents stayed in Mathura.
Both Yeshua and Chrishna withdrew to the wilderness as adults, and fasted.
Both were identified as "the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head."
Jesus was called "the lion of the tribe of Judah." Chrishna was called "the lion of the tribe of Saki."
Both claimed: "I am the Resurrection."
Both referred to themselves having existed before their birth on earth.
Both were "without sin."
Both were god-men: being considered both human and divine.
Both were considered omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Both performed many miracles, including the healing of disease. One of the first miracles that both performed was to make a leper whole. Each cured "all manner of diseases."
Both cast out indwelling demons, and raised the dead.
Both selected disciples to spread his teachings.
Both were meek, and merciful. Both were criticized for associating with sinners.
Both encountered a Gentile woman at a well.
Both celebrated a last supper. Both forgave his enemies.
Both descended into Hell, and were resurrected. Many people witnessed their ascensions into heaven.

Also...

The object of Chrishna's birth was to bring about a victory of good over evil.
Chrishna "came onto earth to cleanse the sins of the human beings."
Chrishna was born while his foster-father Nanda was in the city to pay his tax to the king."
Jesus was born while his foster-father, Joseph, was in the city to be enumerated in a census so that "all the world could be taxed."
Jesus is recorded as saying: "if you had faith as a mustard seed you would say to the mountain uproot yourself and be cast into the ocean" Chrishna is reported as having uprooted a small mountain.
Chrishna's "...foster-father Nanda had to journey to Mathura to pay his taxes" just as Jesus foster-father Joseph is recorded in the Gospel of Luke as having to go to Bethlehem to pay taxes.
The story about the birth of Elizabeth's son John (the Baptist), cousin of Jesus, corresponds with the story in the Chrishna myth about the birth of the child of Nanda and his wife Yasoda. Nanda was the foster-father of Chrishna.
Jesus and Chrishna were all said to have been placed in a manger basket.

The author Jacolliot, referring to the "Bagaveda-Gita and Brahminical traditions," states that the body of Chrishna: "was suspended to the branches of a tree by his murderer, that it might become the prey of the vultures...[Later] the mortal frame of the Redeemer had disappeared--no doubt it had regained the celestial abodes..."
M. Guigniaut's Religion de l'Antiquité, which states: "The death of Crishna is very differently related. One remarkable and convincing tradition makes him perish on a tree, to which he was nailed by the stroke of an arrow."
There are other references to Chrishna being crucified, and being shown with holes in his feet, hands and side.

Jesus' crucifixion on a cross or stake is often referred to as being "hung on a tree:"

Acts 5:30: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus...hanging him on a tree.
Acts 10:39: "...hanging him on a tree."
Acts 13:29: "...they took him down from the tree..."
Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."
1 Peter 2:24: "...who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree..."

So, who knows at this point. If I were to explore further, I might be even tempted to go back further than Christianity and Essenism...perhaps to the source.

Have you read this book yet?

This president of the archaelogical society of NY (and attorney) presents a pretty compelling case regarding how much of the OT stories were borrowed incorporated by scribes into the scriptures.

Go there! Read it! Do it!

[Walden]

I lend no credence to the pseudepigraphal books of Enoch, nor to such interpretations of Holy Writ.

[susnfx]

This president of the archaelogical society of NY (and attorney)...

I lend no credence to anything written by an attorney.

Susan

[elendil]

The first chapters of Enoch (1-11) explain and expand the first part of Gen 6. This motif of "fallen angels" (the sons of God) who came down from heaven and mated with the fair "daughters of men" were imprisoned for that sin, to hang in chains till the Judgement Day. This was a favorite legend omong the Essenes, repeated and referred to many times in the Enoch literature and other books like Jubilees, the Testaments of Reuben and Naphtali.

For in 1 Pet 3:18-20, we see doctrine developing where either Christ or Enoch (depending on which version you read) visited these spirits in prison.

My point remains: this speculation was never a truly significant part of the doctrinal development of the Christian religion, but remained peripheral. Yes, of course these stories were repeated and referred to in the circles that attached great importance to it, but that's the point: references to these works are largely peripheral in early Christianity, and especially in the Apostolic period, including the NT. Sure, some Christian cemeteries have been unearthed and have yielded some of these books, but those finds are a drop in the bucket compared to the finds of NT manuscripts, which refer to these writings in only a literal handful of places but are peppered throughout with references to canonical scriptures.

Look...for me it would be more like Jim relates to Buddhism. If I were to become a Christian, I'd be more attracted to original Christianity that was practiced before Paul Hellenized the works, and before the first flock began to compromise with him.

Judaism was "hellenized" hundreds of years before Paul, in the sense that it came under Greek influence. The scholarship you're referring to is largely discredited, although it retains its hold on popularized accounts of Christianity. Paul is widely recognized, not as a hellenizer, but for his close intellectual ties to the movements that grew into Rabbinic Judaism. (cf. Davies, Sanders, Ziesler, Wright, et alios) Attempts to discredit him as a "hellenizer" are analogous to the Reformers attempts to dismiss the Epistle of James: if the incovenient Paul can be subtracted from Christianity by dismissing him as a "hellenizer" who was untrue to the true hebrew nature of "original" Christianity, then Christianity can be remade into an image to our own liking. But it's not true.

Re the "parallels": virtually none are true parallels at all when they are examined--to jump from tendentiously argued parallels of this sort to literary dependence is simply inadmissible. I think you need to rethink your understanding of myth in general, its function within human thought generally and within these intellectual/religious movements particularly, to include the references to Enoch in 1 Peter and Jude. I am far from maintaining that there are no mythological elements in Christianity, but they are subordinated to history in a unique way and are, again, peripheral to the main thrust of Christian doctrinal development, from the earliest times on.

Susan wrote:

I lend no credence to anything written by an attorney.

I'm sorry Susan, but now you've gone completely overboard. After all, I'm an attorney (well, I got a law degree and passed the bar many years ago), and you can trust me!

[Lorenzo]

S&W (isn't that a canning company?) Hey, there's nothing like a couple really nice potential jurors disqualifying themselves. Now you can only listen, and write letters to the editor.

Regarding the hellenization of Christianity, I assume you are familiar with, or able to detect, the Greek/Roman influences in Paul's writings apart from the influence of Alexander the Great's pratice of fusing cultures and religions together.

[Sunnywindo]

Enoch sheds very little additional light on this episode than is found in Genesis 6.

"the student"? I'm assuming you mean elendil. I hope you meant that in some sort of humorously kidding sort of sense and are not implying that you are the scholar and elendil (and the rest of us) are the misguided students who are in need of learning and enlightenment from you who are above and beyond the need of learning anything in this arena. :roll:

Lorenzo, after reading the many of the scriptures you have quoted and "explained" I can only conclude that you must be reading a different Bible than the one I am familiar with. At least you read into it vastly different things than I have ever seen anyone do before, and I fail to see how you are actually proving anything. I doubt that you truly understand what you are reading. Don't know whether to laugh, cry, or knock you upside the head.

But whatever floats your boat... I'm sure you'd say the same of me and would consider me equally ignorant on the topic. I've been tempted to point out where you and I differ in our understanding of the Bible, but it would take a lot of typing to do it justice and in the end what would be the point? You wouldn't be interested, you'll continue to see what you want to see... you're not going to change your mind and I'm not going to change mine.

I don't mean these harsher than normal words to come across as hateful or anything, because that's not where I'm writing from. I'm writing from the feelings of that I find it painful to see scripture represented or rather as I see it and understand it... grossly misrepresnted as it has been and desire to say as much in defense of something I hold dear. I understand that there are some different ways of interpreting and understanding the Bible out there and can see where most are coming from and even where I disagree there's still at least a bit of affinity there somewhere. But your interpretation is really way over the top for me, and after trying to keep my mouth shut about it I'm giving in to saying so. Actually feel badly for you... I wouldn't want to be in your current shoes. (Someday you will know what I truly mean by that.)


Take care all the same....

Sara

[Lorenzo]

Sara...

Of course I was teasing elendil in good humor (I'm sure he understands), because he claimed that the book of Enoch had very little to add to the story of Genesis 6:1-4. So, I provided him with a comparative chart from both sources, as you can see above, and there was no comparison. Enoch expanded in much greater detail, over the course of approximately 11 chapters, the details of the story. These lawyers...I work with them all the time.

"There is no right or wrong. It's just whichever way you chose to argue it" -from an attorney

Lorenzo, after reading the many of the scriptures you have quoted and "explained" I can only conclude that you must be reading a different Bible than the one I am familiar with.

You're probably right. I use the New Revised Standard Version. I consider it the most accurate and forthright version of the bible. It only has about eight places in the OT that have been changed from the KJV, but about 15 entire verses missing, and a couple dozen 1/2 verses missing, and several places where meaning has been corrected in the NT.

For example, you'll be looking for verse 16 but the NRSV of this chapter will go right from verse 15 to verse 17. You won't find verse 16 anywhere except in a reference in the footnotes which explains why the more reliable bibles omit this text.

I only point this out so that others can be spared of the surprising confusion that eventually sets in when one takes a closer look at scripture, expecting something uniform, tested, and reliable.

There's a good rule of thumb that can be used to determine the reliability or worth of a written creed: Is it coherent within, and does it correspond to the rest?

If it is at odds with another version, something has to give, we have to admit that "someone's" bible, which has apparently always been considered inerrant, is actually fallible.

I can give you all the exact places in the NT, if you're curious. Mark 16:9-20 is nowhere to be found in the NRSV. And this is just the obvious starting place with the problems associated with the true history of Christianity.

It's not just whatever floats your boat. If spirituality doesn't eventually lead one to study the history of the idea, the boat is probably headed in the wrong direction from what you intended to get out of the journey, really.

A little project: go to this bible site and explain why it has nearly every other version of the bible listed as an option, but no Revised Standard Version, nor New Revised Standard Version listed? hmmm.
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible

BTW, the New King James Version includes the traditional texts, but in the footnotes, there's an explanation of why they should actually be omitted.

It's funny..the seriousness of all this rarely sinks in with believers, which goes to prove that a person convinced against their will, will be of the same opinion still.

[Jerry Freeman]

My father, who is a devoted Christian, and shows no indication of being either unreceptive or threatened by the kind of stuff Lorenzo is bringing up here, came up with a book several years ago that I found very interesting. The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say

It was an effort by a group of Bible scholars to identify as best they could, which words attributed to him in the Bible Jesus most likely actually said, probably said, and probably did not say.

There's a listing for it on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/st ... 4194985123

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Bloomfield]

The French proposal (gaining steam)
illegalizing head scarves and yamulkas
and so on from public schools would be struck
down as unconstitutional here--though it's unlikely
that anybody here would try such a thing. Note that our old
friend Chirac backs the law. France isn't all of
europe, but I've lived in Europe and I do
believe the USA is in many ways
the New World. We take a lot for
granted, I think. Best

I think that is a bit unfair to the French. To understand the pronounced sensitivity of the French on this issue, you really have to look to the French revolution, and the painful, cataclysmic way in which liberty was won. The separation of church and state, and the secularity of the state, is very important in France: culturally, symbolically, and legally. The veil or kippa in school is regarded as an assault on the neutrality and secularity of the state.