CaliforniaKid wrote:It's unfortunate that many of my threads over there these days seem to either get totally ignored or to degenerate into snipefests. People make snide comments, and I find myself ever less-inclined to restrain myself from responding in kind. And then I feel like an asshole. It's really not in my nature to be an asshole, but the sarcasm brigade over there brings out the worst in me, I'm afraid.
This is exactly why I should not be posting on MADB anymore.
CaliforniaKid wrote:It's unfortunate that many of my threads over there these days seem to either get totally ignored or to degenerate into snipefests. People make snide comments...
As I see it, this just means you're winning the argument, Chris. I, for one, have been reading your comments, and I think there are others who do as well.
CaliforniaKid wrote:It's unfortunate that many of my threads over there these days seem to either get totally ignored or to degenerate into snipefests. People make snide comments, and I find myself ever less-inclined to restrain myself from responding in kind. And then I feel like an asshole. It's really not in my nature to be an asshole, but the sarcasm brigade over there brings out the worst in me, I'm afraid.
This is exactly why I should not be posting on MADB anymore.
It boggles the mind to see them call you some kind of determined anti-Mormon. It's as if nothing you've ever done or said matters if you dare to challenge them on something which seems on the face of it fairly obvious and not particularly threatening.
Yeah. I think part of that comes from reading my OP with hell-colored glasses. Nobody seems to understand what I was responding to in my OP; rather, they think that I am negating the truth of the whole Book of Abraham on the basis of one anachronism.
The best part was when Bill critiqued and dismissed the supposed methodology of my article (which he hasn't read), and I responded sarcastically that I looked forward to reading his summary dismissal when the article actually went to print (in other words, don't critique something you haven't read), and then he and Dr. P laugh for several posts about how I seem to think I can foretell the future.
You'd think that after a million years of communication, we'd be better at it than this.
The Hebrews had no concept of "saving souls" in the modern/Western/Greek sense. Their vision of the afterlife, throughout most of their history, seems to have been that the righteous "rest with their fathers", while the morally dubious are condemned to a shadowy, passive existence as "shades" in the realm of Sheol. Even late in their history, when the hope of a resurrection entered Jewish thought, nobody would have spoken of it the salvation of "souls". They certainly would not have spoken of souls being "won" or "saved" in the present!
This sounds like the concept of paradise and prison. We do know from the scriptures that the Hebrews did not have a concept of a lot of things 'Christian' but this is to be expected of a people relegated to a lesser law that they could hardly deal with and had to build a hedge about.
Joseph Smith's use of the image of soul-winning is distinctly Christian and singularly out of place in the world of ancient Judaism. It fits well, however, with historic Christian misreadings of the Old Testament text based on a failure to comprehend synecdoche.
Since Abraham predates Moses, I would expect him to have a full or fuller knowledge of the gospel. It's analogous to the Book of Mormon peoples also having a more 'evangelical style'. Yes, they were 'law of Moses Hebrews', but they also had the benefit of starting from scratch, from a righteous core, and may have restored (or at least not lost) the proper 'style'.
The Hebrews had no concept of "saving souls" in the modern/Western/Greek sense. Their vision of the afterlife, throughout most of their history, seems to have been that the righteous "rest with their fathers", while the morally dubious are condemned to a shadowy, passive existence as "shades" in the realm of Sheol. Even late in their history, when the hope of a resurrection entered Jewish thought, nobody would have spoken of it the salvation of "souls". They certainly would not have spoken of souls being "won" or "saved" in the present!
This sounds like the concept of paradise and prison. We do know from the scriptures that the Hebrews did not have a concept of a lot of things 'Christian' but this is to be expected of a people relegated to a lesser law that they could hardly deal with and had to build a hedge about.
Joseph Smith's use of the image of soul-winning is distinctly Christian and singularly out of place in the world of ancient Judaism. It fits well, however, with historic Christian misreadings of the Old Testament text based on a failure to comprehend synecdoche.
Since Abraham predates Moses, I would expect him to have a full or fuller knowledge of the gospel. It's analogous to the Book of Mormon peoples also having a more 'evangelical style'. Yes, they were 'law of Moses Hebrews', but they also had the benefit of starting from scratch, from a righteous core, and may have restored (or at least not lost) the proper 'style'.
I hope no one minds if I correct a fairly egregious misstatement in this thread.
Runtu wrote:
Actually, no, that wasn't Chris's point. Joseph's reading corresponds to a typical Biblical reading, which Chris suggested was anachronistic. It wasn't something Joseph got right despite the overwhelming odds against it. As Chris put it, Joseph's was "obviously just a revision of Genesis 12:15 [read: 12:5]."
Coggins7 replied:
Joseph's reading [of Genesis 12:5] corresponds to the readings of ancient texts dealing with Abraham that Joseph did not have and no one understood at that time. Those ancient texts and a nuber of rabbinic commnetaries support Josehp's readings, not the critics' claims about a 19th century orgin for the Book of Abraham.
The portion of Coggins7's comment that I’ve highlighted in bold red is demonstrably false.
Several biblical commentaries available in Joseph Smith's era mentioned the tradition that the "gotten" souls in Genesis 12:5 were converts to Abraham's religion. For example:
"... some understand it of the proselytes made during their stay there; and no doubt they were as industrious in spreading and propagating the true religion ..." (John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament [London: Mathews & Leigh, Strand, 1810], s.v. Gen. 12:5.)
"... they took ... their servants, who were their property, and probably many of them proselytes to their religion." (Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible ... with Original Notes and Practical Observations [Boston: Samuel T. Armstrong, 1818], s.v. Gen. 12:5.)
"That is, the proselytes they had made, and persuaded to worship the true God ..." (Joseph Benson, The Holy Bible ... with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical [London: J. Kershaw, 1825], s.v. Gen 12:5; cf. Henry below.)
"(2.) The proselytes they had made, and persuaded to worship the true God ..." (Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament [Philadelphia: Towar & Hogan, 1828], s.v. Gen. 12:5; cf. Benson above.)
"This may apply to the persons ... he [Abram] had been the instrument of converting to the knowledge of the true God ..." (Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible ... with a Commentary and Critical Notes [New York: N. Bangs and J. Emory, 1826], s.v. Gen. 12 :5.)
Symon Patrick had already preserved the rabbinic tradition in English as early as the 17thC–18thC:
"The Chaldee Paraphrast interprets this of the Proselytes they had won to God." (Symon Patrick, A Commentary upon the First Book of Moses, Called Genesis, 3rd ed. [London: Ri. Chiswell, 1704], s.v. Gen. 12:5.)
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein
Talk about eerie.. I was listening to the opening of Beethoven's fifth, just as Brent submited his post.
No kidding.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein